DEVILCAKE

make your own Devilcake blog

2012-02-03T17:00:00.000-05:00

watch the stream HERE http://livestre.am/1g5tV

flyers

2011-10-22T15:36:00.003-04:00

DEVILCAKE - 2008 - PIZZA PARTY - CD acoustic food metal

2011-07-14T11:53:00.000-04:00

DEVILCAKE
PIZZA PARTY
UNPLUGGED CD
2008

Limited edition CD produced by Steve Osmun

---

Mike Gourley - vocals
Mike Chuck Bill - bass. cello,
Brian Dort - guitar, backing vocal
Steve Osmun - guitar, backing vocal
Ian C Stewart - drums

1. Cello Intro
2. Burn, Sandwich, Burn!!!
3. Wienermobile
4. Caramel Knowledge
5. Chicken Nuggets Of Sin
6. Guacamole, Damn It
7. I Can't Believe It's Not Satan
8. Salad Bar Man
9. Marshmallow
10. Deez Nuts
11. Soft Batch Mama (She's HOT!)
12. Hands Off My Oreos
13. Stromboli Fever
14. Pizza Party
15. Sauerkraut Lurking
16. Fribble
17. Robo Marshmallow
18. I Want A Big Mac

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

DEVILCAKE - 2005 - EATING THE GOSPEL - CD

2011-07-01T19:41:00.000-04:00

This album has a real cover, why can't I find it?

DEVILCAKE
EATING THE GOSPEL CD 2005

Mike Gourley - vocals
Steve Osmun - all everything

1. Hands Off My Oreos
2. I Can't Believe It's Not Satan
3. Salad Bar Man
4. Wienermobile
5. Pizza Party
6. Cereal And Beer
7. Fribble

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD 41MB

DEVILCAKE - FEBRUARY 1992 - REHEARSAL DEMO - PIE HAIR PIE

2011-01-31T15:39:00.000-05:00

last rehearsal demo of the 1992 tapes

DEVILCAKE
PIE, HAIR PIE
rehearsal demo
February 1992

Mike Gourley - vocals
Raymond Lilly - bass
Gabe - guitar
Todd Skaggs - keyboards, samples, turntable
Ian C Stewart - drums, backing vocals
Matt Stewart - bass

Pie hair pie, don't axe why, show me some thigh

1. Pie, Hair Pie
2. Pie, Hair Pie
3. Salad Bar Man
4. Hands Off My Oreos
5. Wacko Taco
6. Guacamole, Damn It
7. Purple Pie Pizza
8. Purple Pie Pizza
9. Purple Pie Pizza
10. Purple Pie Pizza
11. Purple Pie Pizza
12. I Want A Big Mac
13. Pie, Hair Pie
14. Salad Bar Man
15. Hands Off My Oreos
16. Wacko Taco
17. Donuts Oh Oooooooooo
18. Purple Pie Pizza
19. Iron Man Via

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

DEVILCAKE - JANUARY 1992 - PIE HAIR PIE - REHEARSAL DEMO WITH SAX

2011-01-31T15:29:00.000-05:00

DEVILCAKE REHEARSAL DEMO JANUARY 1992 AT MMS

DEVILCAKE
PURPLE PIE PIZZA
rehearsal demo
January 1992

Mike Gourley - vocals
Matt Hahn - sax
Raymond Lilly - bass
Gabe - guitar
Ian C Stewart - drums

1. Reggae Jam In E
2. Pie Hair Pie, Show Me Some Thigh!
3. I Want A Big Mac, Take Back Your McNuggets, I Didn't Order That
4. Salad Bar Man
5. Stromboli Fever Making Me Sweat
6. Donuts Oh Oooooooooo
7. Red Pop, Red Pop, Red Pop, Oooohhh
8. Guacamole, Damn It! Leave it alone!
9. Wacko Taco Like None I've Ever Had
10. Hands Off My Oreos, I'm Not Big On Authority, Anything You Want Is All Right By Me
11. Purple Pie Pizza Super Deluxe
12. C Is For Cookie, Good Enough For ME...

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

DEVILCAKE - WACKO TACO - JANUARY 1992 REHEARSAL DEMO

2011-01-31T15:07:00.000-05:00

DEVILCAKE - WACKO TACO - Rehearsal at MMS - January 1992

DEVILCAKE
WACKO TACO
rehearsal demo
January 1992

Mike Gourley - vocals
Ray Lilly - bass
Gabe Pitonak - guitar
Ian C Stewart - drums (with borrowed double-kick pedal)
Matt Stewart - bass

1. I Want A Big Mac
2. Pie, Hair Pie
3. Salad Bar Man
4. Red Pop
5. Soft Batch Mama (Learn It With Us, Why Don't You)
6. Stromboli Fever
7. Wacko Taco
8. Fribble
9. Guacamole, Damn It
10. C Is For Cookie
11. Stumpy-ass Drum Solo

DOWNLOAD IT HERE

DEVILCAKE - EARLY 1992 DEVILCRUMBS REHEARSAL DEMO

2011-01-31T14:27:00.001-05:00

DEVILCRUMBS A ONE-TIME ONLY SESSION FROM EARLY 1992

DEVILCAKE
DEVILCRUMBS
A DEVILCAKE SPLINTER GROUP
ABORTED REHEARSAL
rehearsal demo
early 1992

Only half of the band showed up to rehearse...

Instead of doing anything productive, we swapped instruments and improvised for half an hour.

Mike Gourley - keyboard
Ray Lilly - vocals
Todd Skaggs - drums
Ian C Stewart - bass

1. Stromboli Fever (Do It Again)
2. Red Pop
3. Go For It
4. Why Can't I
5. Can I Get A
6. Memory

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD!!!!!!!

DEVILCAKE - 2002 - I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT DEVILCAKE - 6CD

2011-01-05T11:36:00.005-05:00

DEVILCAKE
I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT DEVILCAKE
6-CD BOXSET
Bizarre Depiction
2002

The boxset includes new, food-themed solo albums by each member of the band.

CD1 - BIG DON AND THE CONDIMENTS info or CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
aka Mike Gourley on vocals with everyone else switching instruments between every song.

1. Country Cookies
2. Salad Bar Of Whores
3. Fuckpuppet Buffet
4. Supersize Daisycutter
5. Tonight I'm Serving Sausage
6. Drive Thru Song
7. Whipped Cream Delights
8. Supersize
9. Skank Sandwich

CD2 - ICY STEW - AN ALPHABETICAL FOOD ODYSSEY
Ian C Stewart - all everything
1. Approach The Buffet
2. A Song About Chicken
3. All You Need Is Stroganoff
4. Bad Bone
5. Banana Patch
6. Bipolar Beef
7. Biscuits
8. Buffalo Dragon Wings
9. Can A Cake Dance?
10. Can-O-Cakes
and 89 others

CD3 - AURAL FIXATION FEATURING KID CHILL - CHAOS CREAMSICLE
Todd Skaggs - all everything
1. (Holding The) Milky Way
2. Counting Jawbreakers
3. Got Milk
4. TV Dinner Blues
5. Chowdrill
6. Never Fry Bacon Naked
7. Chocolate Covered Cherries
8. Starburst Euphoria
9. Tray Holding
10. Drive Thru Drive By
11. Breakfast (ITMIKOTD)
12. Light It Up
13. Chaos Creamsicle
14. All You Need

CD4 - DARING NAILS - THE FINAL CROUTON
Darrin Ailes - all everything
1. (You're My) Peanut Butter Cup
2. (I Want A Girl Inside) My Birthday Cake
3. Smoothie
4. Another Man's Feast
5. Mama's Corned Beef Stew
6. AJOJLemonadde
7. Clouds Of Cotton Candy
8. Gimme Gimme Gummy Bears
9. Bloody Red Steak
10. Aubergine
11. Circus Food
12. Dance Of The Macadamia Nuts
13. Doggie Food
14. Grapefruit
15. Grocery Store - version 2
16. Grocery Store
17. Jellybean
18. Licorice Lips
19. No Milk
20. Oh Dear (Doggie Food)
21. Smoothie
22. Tangerine

CD5 - MICHAEL BILL / EVIL BREAD SPLIT

Michael Bill
1. Venison
2. Gnawing
3. Your Food Is Poison
4. The Pins And The Needles
5. Small Cage
6. Soup
EVILBREAD (Michael Million - all everything)
7. Goatheadcheese
8. Huevos Diablos
9. Kumquats
10.Loinsaplenty
11. Oh! My Sphincter

CD6 - DEVILCAKE - I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT SATAN
Mike Gourley - vocals
Darrin Ailes - drums and the spoken intro of "Frankenstein's French Fries"
Michael Bill - guitar
Todd Skaggs - keyboard
Ian C Stewart - bass

1. Marshmallow
2. Wienermobile
3. Sacrificial Leg Of Lamb
4. Cereal And Beer
5. Pizza Party
6. Flesh Feast
7. I Can't Believe It's Not Satan (But It's Just Old Food)
8. Frankenstein's French Fries
9. Bloody Red Steak
10. Shit Down Your Neck

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD!

DEVILCAKE - 2002 - DEVILCAKE ON A STICK (REHEARSALS & IMPROV)

2011-01-02T17:58:00.000-05:00

DEVILCAKE
ON A STICK
REHEARSAL, IMPROVISATIONS AND WEIRDNESS
February 24, 2002

Ian on Chapman Stick, Todd on synths, Michael Bill on guitar, Darrin on drums, Gourley on the mic.......

IMPROVS & WEIRDNESS
1. Elephant Talk They Make You Learn It
2. Between Marshmallow And Wienermobile
3. Betwienermobile And Bigmac
4. Long Paul McCartney Fill Yet
5. Wanking On The Moon
6. Through Different Amps
7. Let's Just Play It
8. Wild Thing
9. Ah Shit Is Right
10. Stick With It, Kid
11. Salad Barman
12. Coincidentally, The Acronym Is HOMO
13. Natural Guacamole Fever
14. Stromboli Damn It
15. The Slower The Better

REHEARSAL
1. Marshmallow
2. Wienermobile
3. I Want A Big Mac
4. Sacrificial Leg Of Lamb
5. Walking On The Pie Hair Pie
6. Pizza Party
7. I Can't Believe It's Not Satan
8. Cereal And Beer
9. Deez Nuts
10. Fribble
11. Shit Down Your Neck
12. Salad Bar Man
13. Hands Off My Oreos
14. Guacamole, Damn It
15. Stromboli Fever
16. Chicken Nuggets Of Sin

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

DEVILCAKE - 2001 - SHOUT AT THE DEVILCAKE - CD

2011-01-01T14:17:00.001-05:00

Devilcake already losing points for originality 2001

shout at the devilcake back cover, 2001

DEVILCAKE
SHOUT AT THE DEVILCAKE
2001
BIZARRE DEPICTION CD
recorded on the 8-track somewhere in Westerville

Mike Chuck Bill - guitar
Mike Gourley - singer
Ray Lilly - keyboards
Ian C Stewart - drums
Matt Stewart* - bass

*not related

1. Pie Hair Pie
2. I Want A Big Mac
3. Pringle Jingle
4. Marshmallow
5. Soft Batch Mama
6. Deez Nuts
7. Stromboli Fever
8. Spicy Beef Stick
9. Hands Off My Oreos
10. Das Boot
11. Red Pop
12. Chicken Nuggets of Sin
13. Guacamole Damn It
14. Omelette of Death

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

DEVILCAKE - 2002 - FRANKENSTEIN'S FRENCH FRIES rehearsal demo DOWNLOAD!

2010-12-31T15:51:00.001-05:00

DEVILCAKE
FRANKENSTEIN'S FRENCH FRIES rehearsal demo
aka EVERY SONG WE KNOW
2002

Darrin Ailes - drums
Michael Bill - guitar
Mike Gourley - singer
Steve Osmun - guitar
Todd Skaggs - keyboards
Ian C Stewart - bass

1. Marshmallow and Wienermobile
2. Chicken Nuggets of Sin
3. Salad Bar Man
4. Hands Off My Oreos
5. Deez Nuts
6. Cereal and Beer
7. Stromboli Fever
8. Flesh Feast
9. Sacrificial Leg of Lamb
10. Soft Batch Mama
11. Pizza Party
12. Pie Hair Pie and I Want A Big Mac
13. Frankenstein's French Fries
14. Frankenstein's French Fries
15. Red Pop
16. Spicy Beef Stick
17. No Mayonnaise
18. No Mayonnaise
19. I Can't Believe It's Not Satan
20. Guacamole, Damn It
21. Fribble
22. Muffin Man

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

BIG DON AND THE CONDIMENTS

2008-07-27T09:39:00.009-04:00

BIG DON AND THE CONDIMENTS
recorded at Darrin's Basement Studios May 2001-January 2002
live! with almost no overdubs!

1. COUNTRY COOKIES (music - the Condiments/lyrics - Gourley) MP3
2. SALAD BAR OF WHORES (music - the Condiments/lyrics - Stewart) MP3
3. FUCKPUPPET BUFFET (music - Bill/lyrics - Gourley) MP3
4. SUPERSIZE DAISYCUTTER (music - the Condiments/lyrics - Gourley) MP3
5. TONIGHT I'M SERVING SAUSAGE (music - Stewart/lyrics - Gourley) MP3
6. DRIVE THRU SONG (music - the Condiments/lyrics - Gourley) MP3
7. WHIPPED CREAM DELIGHTS (music - Stewart/lyrics - Gourley) MP3
8. SUPERSIZE (music - Stewart, Million/lyrics - Gourley) MP3
9. SKANK SANDWICH (music - Stewart, Million/lyrics - Stewart) MP3
10. SHE MAKES GOOD COOKIES (music - Million/lyrics - Gourley) MP3

SHE MAKES GOOD COOKIES
Her name was Betty
She lived next door
Everybody used to say
she was a whore

That's all right
she's okay
she's all right
anyway
Betty
oh Betty

She makes good cookies
I could eat them all night
She makes good cookies
my tummy feels right

SUPERSIZE
You say you want my love
and I'm the one you're dreaming of
the things I'll do to you
I can't believe

Let's get it on
Let's rock and roll
you'll see things
you never saw before
you're in for a surprise
now feast your eyes
on my supersize

show me your thighs
you won't believe your eyes

Rain and fire
I'm going to penetrate
Your caves of fire
Once you see it
you won't believe your eyes
Here's my supersize daisycutter

WHIPPED CREAM DELIGHTS
Thank you very much
for joining me for lunch
go ahead and have a seat
I'll fix you something to eat

Let me ask you this
Let me ask you this
but before can I have a kiss

Something to drink
You like it hot
Or would you like some ice
You say macaroni would be nice
Let me know when you're done
Because the best is yet to come

You say you can't eat anymore
I hope you saved room
I'm about to give you
What you came here for

I envy you for what you're about to receive
I envy you because you're in for a treat
Open up - close your eyes
for a whipped cream delight

come with me to the neverland
let me show you
I am the man

SKANK SANDWICH
It's like a salad bar of whores
in my hotel room
The eat me
while I eat a mushroom

How many tonight
three or four
hard to choose
between all the whores

whores for breakfast or a late dessert
cook 'em in their own sauce
ball 'em all till deez nuts hurt
wash off the family jewels
with a handfull of Pert

TONIGHT I'M SERVING SAUSAGE
You say you don't eat meat
but I know you'll suck it
I know you're a vegetarian
that's fine
but when you see the meat
you'll change your mind

I'm not serving salad
I'm not serving rabbit food
Here, eat a 'lude
When you're ready I'll be out with the real food

once you try it I think you'll like it
but please don't bite it

FUCKPUPPET BUFFET
Lady how could you be so uncool
Baby how could you be so damn cruel
Fuckpuppet I thought I was your man
I can't believe what you did
Damn

You don't even know what you did
You don't even seem to care
I thought that we would always be together
and it would be me and you forever

but you had to do it
but you had to be that cruel

You went to the buffet without telling me
and what you did is unforgettable
I'm leaving today
I thought we'd be together forever
I thought it would always be me and you
but not now
it's over
credits:
Mike "Big Don" Gourley on the mic - vocals, harmonica on 1
The Condiments:
Daring Nails: guitar 1-3, 5, 7, bass 6, 8-10, keyboards 7
I.P. Frehley: drums 1-4, guitar 5-6, drum machine overdub 7
Kid Chill: silence 1, guitar 4, 8-10, keyboards 7, drums 5-6, harmonica 3
Kill Bill Fuckface Durango MacDougal: bass 1-2, 5, 7, guitar 3, keyboards 7, shit-talking 4 & 6, silence 5

HERE'S WHAT WE ALL REMEMBER.........................

Ian's commentary:

BIG DON AND THE CONDIMENTS CD
aka disc one of the 6 disc Devilcake box set "I Can't Believe it's not Devilcake" in 2002.

The idea du jour was to make albums within albums for the "I Can't Believe It's Not Devilcake" 6- CD box set. The band lineup consisted of Darrin, Todd, Mike Bill, me and Gourley. We all had our own 4-track recorders at home (except Gourley) and we all wrote & recorded our own music in addition to Devilcake. I think Mike Bill loaned Gourley a 4-track and a keyboard so he could go away & make a solo album on his own, as the rest of us were doing for the upcoming box set release.

Weeks passed and everyone made progress on their own albums, except for Gourley. I knew we'd have to take a different approach. & since most of us could be considered multi instrumentalists, why not take the opportunity to mix up the line-up & have Darrin on bass, Todd on drums, Mike Bill shouting insults through a megaphone, etc.

I wanted the minimum of fuss for the sessions - the idea was to just throw a few mics into the air, keep the whole thing raw, but have a good time with it.

Unfortunately, the first session we did for Gourley's solo album was not the unmitigated ease-of-operations I was hoping for. The song was a synth pop moper that I came up with. The concept was simple, everyone plays a keyboard while I played live drums. Gourley had the lyrics already written, I think. The song came out okay, I guess. But the session really only came alive once we went back to overdub handclaps.

So the next time we got together to work on Gourley's solo album, we made sure the vibe was much looser. No one knew what to expect beyond having a good time. And even then it was going to be a gamble.

Raw punk rock was the order of the day. So I stayed on drums and to make us sound like a teenage punk rock band, I gave Todd and Darrin the tricky bits to play on guitar. Hah. Todd can play guitar, no problem, but this shit was kind of tricky to play anyway. Same with Darrin, he could make the riffs happen but it wasn't easy. Mike Bill playing bass for possibly the first time ever. So in all it sounded like a slightly shambolic punk rock band. Fuck yeah!

I revived a few beasts from my Uncultured/Domestik Quarrel!?!/XYCHQ days & taught them to the other guys as best I could. I wrote new lyrics, so "Skank Bitch" (whose lyrics were about an annoying girl at school) became "Skank Sandwich" (about doubling up with some whores in a hotel room).

But that's only half of the story of this ridiculous album! We jammed out a few acoustic ballads, a blues and even a country track. Gourley wrote lyrics on the spot and came up with some of his best shit ever!

DC was never this spontaneous before or after Gourley's solo album!

I should just explain that the name 'big don' comes from the pizza place Donato's, it's their large submarine sandwich. And Mike Gourley's alias is Don, which is how many people know him, all of his coworkers from the Virgin Megastore call him Don. So, there ya go. Big Don. 'and the condiments' might've been a nod to a band we played many gigs with, Tom Foolery & the Mistakes. Or not, I don't remember.

The majority of the recording for this album took place on one day in January 2002 at Darrin's house. We set up a bunch of amps & mics & everyone took turns on every instrument. Ideas were pursued & abandoned very quickly if they sucked or if they just weren't going to work. I remember trying to teach everyone the riffs from my old Uncultured song "Silent War" but it was too much, so we tried something else.

The vibe was extremely loose & we all busted out laughing at the end of every single song. The entire thing was just too damn funny. There was magic in the room that day & I'm not sure if the mics captured it all, but the CD does still crack us all up.

I See Stew, aka I.P. Freely

---

---

Todd, aka Kid Chill:

Ah..memory, clearly my drug of choice. I honestly don't remember this being in 2 different sessions (or 12 or whatever it was). I DO remember the syth-pop-moper-shoulda been a Cars song. And I still really like it. Actually I still dig all of the songs on the album. Each one was a capsule of something so completely different from anything Devilcake had done up to that point.

You went to a buffet without telling me....
Fuckpuppet Buffet is the jam.

I wish I could come up with some amusing anectdotes about these sessions. All that really sticks out to me is

* My cave-man drumming on the drive-thru song (seriously, I can't believe you guys let me on drums)
* The synth track...I loved it!
* Not feeling skilled enough for the guitar part (I didn't feel as comfortable then with just picking shit up..although I guess it came out ok in hindsight)

Not much to go on, but i guess it says something that I still laugh everytime I listen to the CD.

---

Michael Bill, aka Kill Bill Fuckface Durango MacDougal

I remember it as one day, but I could be wrong. Here is some nostalgia in bullet form:

* At one point we needed a ballad, so I sat down with the acoustic and came up with the changes for the "fuckpuppet I" song. I remember saying the guitar sounded like "Queensryche's Silent Lucidity meets Total Stupidity."
* The megaphone was indeed my best friend that day. The drive thru song made me piss my pants, even though the recording didn't really come out the best. I'm so stupid, I'm like a retard playing with a pen.
* I remember we we're all trying to come up with some riffs, ideas, chord changes etc... And Gourley kept pacing with a notebook in super-secret form writing down lyrics. At one point he was sitting against the far wall in Darrin's basement and out of nowhere asked "Hey, what's that thing the military shoots into caves to clear them out?" or some shit like that. I mean, huh?
* Gourley was definitely on his game that day or days or whatever. I wasn't aware of anything he had written (I'm not sure if anyone knew) and because we were recording live, unrehearsed (at least the vocals weren't too rehearsed) just about everything that came out of his mouth had me laughing. The best however was the "Dammmmmnnnnnn!!!!"
* That was the first time I really had to play bass and I remember at the time feeling like what my dad always described as "a monkey fucking a football."

All in all, it was a great experience and the album came out better than I thought it would. In many ways, Gourley's solo album was the highlight of that box set. Not only listenening to it now, but the whole process.

---

Darrin, aka Daring Nails:

Here's what I remember about the Gourley sessions:

* For the synth pop thing, I think the original concept was to do an entire new wave / disco thing. We were thinking we could crank off 8 songs in like 4 hours. It took forever to get all the synths set up. I believe that Gourley showed up and said 'um, yeah, I have to leave at 1pm' and it was already 11am. So we only got the one song.

* The clapping session for the synth song was amusing since there were 4 musicians there and we couldn't even keep and even beat.

* I think I came up with the doo-dee-doo-doo doo-dee-doo-doo-dah thing in the synth song. I think I was told to 'come up with something' so, um, that was it.

* Once it was clear that we were only getting one synth song, we called it a day. The process of setting up all the synths and the fact that no one in the group really felt comfortable on keys made us globally decide that maybe an album of varied music types was more in order.

* For the 'punk' session, we recorded the remaining 9 or 10 songs or whatever it was.

* The first part of the session was the 'punk part'. Todd and I were on guitar, both plugged into the same piece of shit amp. We were slightly out of tune and when I asked if we should get more in tune the answer was 'no... it'll make it sound more punk.'

* Everyone was having trouble keeping time with the 'makes good cookies' tune. None of them was particularly good, so I think we may have kept them all since it was a 45 second song. I don't exactly recall where the idea to do a Pink Floyd ending came from. I have the entire session for that song, however you can't really hear the background conversations, but the decision was made quickly.

* Remember my forearms cramping up big time after playing bar chords for the 1/2 hour or however long we spent recording the punk parts.

* For the Pink Floyd break down of She Makes Good Cookies, at some point in my infinite wisdom I started going into I Want A Big Mac (around the 10:10 mark) which met with a 'um... no' look from Ian. You can literally hear the moment when I looked at Ian and I immediately change what I'm playing. Ha!

* The Country Cookies song was based on a chord progression I had written as part of my 'homework' for the solo album. I figured that everyone would think it sucked, but everyone rolled with it since the whole point was to have a bunch of different styles.

* In the box set, it lists me as playing guitar on Fuckpuppet Buffet and I think on Tonight I'm Serving Sausage (MCB was on the bullhorn yet again). I think I played bass on those. Some of my favorite bass work I've ever done. I played bass on #4 as well.

* I remember 'coming up' with the drive thru song. I think we were about the hang it up or we were in a slight lull or something, but I felt like playing, so I started playing the bass riff. Then Todd joined in. And the rest is history. Even if you can't hear the 'intercom' stuff MCB was doing, it's still a damn funny song. The whole vibe of it is awesome. I believe the tape ran out which is why we had to do the echo'd ending. My favorite part of the entire album is when Gourley says "Let me speak to a manager. I don't like your tone."

* Unrelated to the Gourley album, but something that was not common knowledge: The 'kermit and piano songs' at the end of my solo album were supposed to be known as the 'Barry Manilow Demo Songs'. I was going to have this letter from Devilcake asking Barry if he would consider singing a few of the songs we had written. There would have also been another letter on Barry Manilow letterhead with a reply of one word: No.

---

a few more icystew recollections:

COUNTRY COOKIES
I think Darrin played guitar on this. The lyrics for "She Makes Good Cookies" date back to the late 80s & were recycled in a couple of Gourley's bands, as were (if I recall correctly) "I Want a Big Mac" and "Hands Off My Oreos". Gourley's awesome band the Virgin Dingleberry Dispensers might've played this song, along with his other lost classic, "Stung By a Bee." That's right, while my band the Uncultured was singing about politics & religion, Gourley's band had "Constipated".

SALAD BAR OF WHORES
It's like a salad bar of whores in my hotel room. My lyric. I don't remember who else did what.

FUCKPUPPET BUFFET
Clearly the greatest moment ever achieved by Devilcake in any format or context.

SUPERSIZE DAISYCUTTER
TONIGHT I'M SERVING SAUSAGE
Those are my failed attempt at big-boy Berklee chords (swing and a miss) being put to no use whatsoever. I wrote the main riff in the year 1802, thinking it sounded like a cross between Dokken and the Cure. Which it does. Todd's drumming rocks, it's like Stewart Copeland inverted... over a flaming gong. Is that Darrin on bass? How's that for a Second Floor rhythm section. Shit yeah.

DRIVE THRU SONG
Best song ever.

WHIPPED CREAM DELIGHTS
Best all keyboard song by us ever.

SUPERSIZE

SKANK SANDWICH
This is the old Domestik Quarrel!!? music from "Cod, Not God" but with new lyrics, which were so good we used them twice.

SHE MAKES GOOD COOKIES
The riff was from a long-forgotten song by my band XYCHQ in late 1988 or early 1989. Michael Million has no recollection of writing this, which makes it even better. When XYCHQ played this riff it was called "Destruction of the Earth Party". Mis-handled by the Condiments, it takes on a life of its own. We tried so many times to nail it that I just kept all the takes for the CD, including the 'pink floyd freakout' one at the end. What the hell, why not.

HELLC1TYTATTOOFEST 2008-05-16

2008-05-16T18:00:00.003-04:00

DEVILCAKE
COLUMBUS CONVENTION CENTER
Mike Gourley
Michael Bill
Steve Osmun
Ian Stewart

This day was literally the exact scenario of the big Devilcake gig-that-kinda-wasn't at Polaris back in 2002 or 2003 or whatever year that was, when we should've opened for Poison/Cinderella/Winger/Faster Pussycat, but were rained out after 20 minutes. Same shit today, only substitute tattooed outcasts for beery mullet-heads.

I debated wearing my cape today, decided against it, tried it on, decided to wear it, wore it as far as MCB's car & realized it was stupid. So it stayed in the car, which is what we all probably should've done!

We got down to the convention center pretty quickly & hung out & waited for the Gourleys & the Osumuns for a while. Eventually they appeared & we made our way upstairs to where the action was. Such as it was.

Unfortunately the event was not held in Battelle Hall, where, as I never tired of telling everyone today, I saw a shitload of arena metal shows in the 80s. Like Cheap Trick/Krokus/Saxon, like Ozzy/Metallica, like KISS three times. Aren't you glad you asked.

But we did get to cut through the Battelle Hall to get to the service elevator so we could bring our shit up on one of those huge industrial flatbed dolly things. Um. It's sad, the end of the old arena where they used to set up the stage is now partitioned in by temporary looking walls. I really wanted to play a song in there just so we could say we played fuckin' Battelle Hall. The old Ohio Center!

So the dolly thing, yeah, we had to wheel that sumbitch allllllllllll the way down two levels of parking garage to get my drums from Gourley's truck thing. It's nice of him to always drive my drums to gigs. So yeah, we loaded all the shit onto the LOUD dolly thing & lumbered alllllllllllllllllllllll the way back up the two levels. It was tiring & hot & I was sweating like a f8cktard before we even played a damn note. Not cool. Literally!

We set up quickly, amid the stares & glares of the assembled freaks. We were, that's right, the freak show at the freak show. Myself & the two Gourleys were probably the only mofos in the house with no tattoos.

The main hall is packed with tattoo artists & booths, I mean if you really wanted 'some ink', you could fully get it done right now, I'm sure. And there's already a few hundred peeps on site, which is pretty good for a Friday afternoon in cowtown, I think.

My fucking drums never fail to fail whenever possible. Usually their shortcomings are at the front of my brain & I'm always aware of which nut needs to be tightened when etc. But the fuckers were playing dirty, they'd wait until the middle of a song to take a shit, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Cheap ass pieces-o-shiiiiite!

They had big video screens beside the stage, with us being projected onto them while we played. Luckily Steve was blocking my view most of the time, it's very disconcerting to see yourself playing on a video screen slightly out of sync with everything else. You know how there's always that .5 second lag with video screens.

What else. We didn't do a soundcheck, the only PA was for vocals so we rocked it Bernie's/Madlab/Midgard style. Meaning none of us could hear shit. Steve & MCB stood the entire time but Gourley sat on a stool. Which was odd.

My drums & I were in different time zones too. It would've helped if I could've played a beat before we started the set. I did my usual air drumming mime drum thing & it was.....nearly adequate. But not quite!

The MC started to announce us & there was a loud gulping sound from Steve's amp. Which was the sound of his tuner pedal giving up the ghost. The battery just went SQUEENDGE v loudly, then....................nothing.

So, the MC is going "okay, here's Devilcake" & Gourley is going "what's up Columbus, we are Devilcake from Columbus Ohio" etc and Steve's guitar seems to be melting down. Fortunately it's as simple as plugging the guitar directly into the amp & we are in biz. Such as it is.

Gourley greets the crowd some more to no avail. Then we start "Cereal & Beer" and the wheels slowly start to come off of the entire set! Hah. From the word go we are in the shit.

I stumbled a few times, quite noticeably, on the drums. In retrospect it was a kind of fresh madness to open with a song I've only drummed on um twice now. I used to struggle with "Wienermobile" on drums for the same reason, it's a pretty uptempo thing & there's lot of little moments of potential greatness available to the drummer. "Wiener" used to destroy me, I have no idea why, & I'm not sure what happened but eventually I made my peace & it's no problem. But "cereal" & I are barely acquainted............. well, anyway, we made a 'pig's ear' of it but at least it was over quickly? & at least everyone else remembered their parts!

we got to the end of the song & no one clapped, not even Rachel, Bethany (gourley's wife) or the dude they brought with them. OOF! it was the sound of no hands clapping, not even in pity!

3 minutes into the set & we were already stankin' up the joint! hbmmbnhghghgh. It sucks because we KNOW that 'cereal & beer' rules, we KNOW it is a wise thing to open the set with it. So what the hell went wrong!!??

Actually the entire set, we never had a chance with the audience. We're the only band for the entire day & it's a mystery why they even bothered having live music. I don't think anyone would've done well on that stage. I could be wrong.

"Guacamole Damn It" seemed at first to be a shot for early redemption, uptempo & old school as it is. But no. It wasn't bad but it did not kick ass.

"Chicken Nuggets of Sin" is where I finally got my head out of my ass long enough to beat the living f8ck out of the drums. Which is the only reason that song exists in the first place, to detonate & destroy my drums! The p1ssersh1tter/paradox is that once my drums were all aligned properly, I just hit them harder & sped their demise even more. The main cymbal stand, literally, started off at about um like 4-5' high. Ended the song at like 3'. It slowly crept down the entire time. The toms were okay, at least. Hah.

"Caramel Knowledge" might've actually been the best we've ever played it, sorry Steve. I've always struggled (for no reason) with the ending, but I finally got a grip on it today. After um two years. I suck. Steve's only song. Come on.

"Sauerkraut" surprisingly went over um not as bad for some reason? I say surprisingly because we though we'd stick to the uptempo end of the pool & not go for the turgid death drones as much. But yeah, maybe I imagined it but it seemed like we locked into that dark dark groove on that one.

"Wienermobile" was okay except for the cymbals all moving around for the entire song. The hi hat clutch seized up at one point. So it was just loose & flappy there & totally closed. But I recovered in time to beat the living shit out of "Soft Batch Mama." I started it alone with my fake "I Love It Loud" beat & threw in my fake Lars fill at the end. & everyone knows by now that I have a visceral love for that song that goes beyond explanation. I'm not, like, proud of the songwriting or the riffs or anything, it's not the greatest thing I've ever done (or is it) but the riff, the lyric, it just touches something deep within me & I can't help but react to it whenever we play it. So, whee. That was fun.

Wait, getting ahead of myself here, the song after "Wienermobile" was "Sacrificial Leg of Lamb," a much easier Darrin song for me to drum to. Gourley nailed all the vocals & Steve is doing this (appropriately) fruity little chord thing at the beginning since the sustained riff, (the whole point of the song) is mooted by the acoustic guitar. It sounds cool though. But I beat the living shit out of the cymbals & stumbled at the end but oh well. It wasn't horrible but it's better when Darrin plays this stuff & I'm able to loom over him, playing bass & trying not to fall on my ass.

"Hands Off My Oreos" was over in a flash & went kinda sorta okay. I feel like that riff at the beginning is just so rad that by the time we build up into the song part, the acoustics really don't do it any justice. & it's not funny that way. Oh well. "Hands Off" is mr million's devilcake legacy right now.

"Marshmallow" went ehhhhhhhhhhhh not badly. It has certainly sounded worse. But no one cared by this point, possibly not even us. No one was clapping between songs, which makes things very strange. Plus there was a camera dude literally in front of the stage, capturing our every gesture, which ... I mean, I'm self conscious enough without thinking about the camera angle of my farmer's blows or whatever.

"Salad Bar Man" ehhhhhhhhhh. Then we got 3/4 way through "I Can't Believe It's Not Satan" before my bass drum pedal came apart in 3 pieces! I finished the songs on all toms & it was just retarded. By then, the crowd was more apathetic than ever. I tried to sort out the pedal with MCB's assistance to no avail.

And then I took the 3 pieces to Steve, meanwhile the MC was on the side of the stage asking if we were finished. We had like 4-5 more songs on the list but we all kinda went "eh, we can be finished now, fuck it". And as soon as the MC said "okay, ladies & gentlemen, Devilcake" Steve reassembled the bass drum pedal, better than ever! Typical!

Ah well. So we broke our shit down, then read this story backwards for what happened next. ie we rolled all the gear back down the service elevator after walking through the Battelle Hall. And um yeah.

Shockingly we did sell a CD. $5 cash money. Not shockingly, Gourley had to pay to get back into the parking garage, which came to $5.

THE END. It's 6pm and it feels like 3am to me. I GOT BLISTAS ON ME FINGAS!!

& I'm all like philosophical about music & playing & all that bullshit, as ya get after a gig. And especially after a gig-gone-unamazingly.

There might be professionally filmed footage of our set, but I actually hope there isn't. We already apologized to everyone once!

WE PLAYED
CEREAL AND BEER
GUACAMOLE DAMN IT
CHICKEN NUGGETS OF SIN
CARAMEL KNOWLEDGE
SAUERKRAUT
WIENERMOBILE
SACRIFICIAL LEG OF LAMB
SOFT BATCH MAMA
HANDS OFF MY OREOS
MARSHMALLOW
SALAD BAR MAN
I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT SATAN

thanks to Durb and everyone else behind the scenes, everyone was extremely nice, very accomodating, very professional. It was a cool event & we're grateful to even be asked to play.

PHOTGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

2008-01-16T09:56:00.001-05:00

PHP/I WANT A BIG MAC 2001

2007-10-02T09:19:00.001-04:00

Devilcake "Pie Hair Pie/I Want a Big Mac 2001" Youtube

I guess enough years have passed on this one for everyone to be at least slightly objective about it. Maybe?

This gig was a smeg-load of 'firsts' and 'lasts', a truly transitional point in the history of Devilcake. It was Darrin's first gig ever, my first & last Devilcake gig playing guitar, um... Ray on bass, Todd on keyboards. Mike Bill on guitar and Mike Gourley singing. This is possibly the FASTEST "Pie Hair Pie" and "I Want a Big Mac" ever!

Darrin and Todd can weigh in further....

You can see how overwhelmed I was with being liberated from playing drums. I literally could not make up my mind how to proceed on guitar, with my 'costume' (I think we were wearing costumes at that point, right?), it was like a caveman seeing fire for the first time. Or using a wheel. This video captures it all. Guitar behind the head within the first two minutes.... trying not to jump onto my amp....

And I remember vague talk of us all doing a side to side choreographed thing during "I Want a Big Mac," but as you can see I was the only one who followed through. Maybe it's funnier that way. I guess we'll never know!

HERE's the original gig blog...

EVIL BREAD PHOTOS AUGUST 1991

2007-09-16T12:52:00.001-04:00

EVIL BREAD
AUGUST 1991
in my driveway
the day of the Stache's gig

Madlab Saturday July 14, 2007

2007-07-16T09:11:00.000-04:00

SAMARKAND | LARRY MAROTTA + RYAN JEWELL | REMORA | DEVILCAKE
Madlab
Columbus, OH
Saturday, July 14 2007

Devilcake is still in unplugged mode. I'm getting better at rocking quietly on the drums but it's not easy. We didn't have a set list but it was okay. And the triple digits audience was totally into the show. We were one guitarist short but we made up for it somehow. Michael Bill played his new Ashbory bass exclusively & it sounded pretty damn hotttt for a little black fake ukelele with plastic strings. Obviously I loved jamming out to all the old old classics like "Soft Batch Mama," "Guacamole Damn It" and "Deez Nuts." Gourley filled in for our missing guitarist with a few choice notes on the harmonica. And what a triumph of human endeavor it is when every single person in the room is clapping over their heads in time to "Pizza Party." Ladies and gentlemen, we are DEVILCAKE!!!

Devilcake played

CARMEL KNOWLEDGE
SALAD BAR MAN
CHICKEN NUGGETS OF SIN
PIE HAIR PIE
GUACAMOLE DAMN IT
SOFT BATCH MAMA
I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT SATAN
HANDS OFF MY OREOS
FRIBBLE
PIZZA PARTY
DEEZ NUTS

Devilcake - Salad Bar Man unplugged on Youtube

2007-06-02T08:03:00.000-04:00

Devilcake Unplugged....May 27, 2007 Andyman's Treehouse

2007-05-29T08:37:00.000-04:00

2007-05-27

MEN OF GENTLE BIRTH
DEVILCAKE
COLTRANE MOTION
ELECTRIC GRANDMOTHER

Sunday night was the big Memorial Day Weekend blowout at Andyman's Treehouse, curated by Electric Grandmother. For many of us it was our first time at the Treehouse. And perhaps our last. Ha.

I arrived early, but again not as early as Michelle & Brian, who were already maxing out on the couch when I got there. We had plenty of time to kill & get acquainted with the, um, odd, venue. So many rooms. The biggest of which, oddly, was the dressing room area?

Of course the cramped little room with the big fucking tree in the middle was where theee action was to take place. A band was setting up while everyone else in our band arrived & dragged their gear back to the dressing room. Men Of Gentle Birth.... they were loud as shit, spunky as a monkey and I don't know, if I was 10 years younger, they'd be my new favorite band. Their songs were screamy but atmospheric too, kind of effortlessly forced, rocking like shit and I don't know, gracefully awkward. Like Sonic Youth a bit. Sure, why not. I enjoyed them immensely while I assembled my drums in the dressing room.

It only took me 16 years to realize that setting my shit up beforehand = the key to success. Be prepared. So when our turn came to rock, we did so with ease. Or something.

It was the inaugural Devilcake Unplugged show. Everyone in the band sat on stools. It was funny as shit. The tiny room we played in was very quiet. Like, silent between songs. It's a strange sensation. But, fortunately, the audience seemed to be on our side, so everything went quite well. For the most part.

During rehearsals for the unplugged show, we broke out a ton of old songs, most of which Brian had never even heard. I rediscovered my love for opening the show with Pie Hair Pie. Which is what we were gonna do. But somehow we opted for Fribble up top instead? Again?

Gourley busted out the harmonica on several traxx. The audience was so great, they didn't miss a thing. It was a really special evening. And, I'm scared to say, it was like the most mature & musically serious thing we've ever done. Strange.

Steve led the charge of twang & the rest of us followed. Brian broke a string about halfway through the set, I think.. The room was quiet enough between songs that Michael Bill had everyone laughing several times. It was that kind of night, kick ass & really strange.

We played
Fribble
Pie Hair Pie
Wienermobile
Hands Off My Oreos
Stromboli Fever
I Can't Believe It's Not Satan
Salad Bar Man
Burn Sandwich Burn
I Want A Big Mac
Chicken Nuggets of Sin
Marshmallow

encore
Pizza Party

And again we let Pizza Party get away from us. We need a better encore song! I don't know why it falls apart...

It was a challenge for me to play drums quietly. I bet I was louder than everyone else combined.... I hope not. I did use brushes on Salad Bar Man but it was totally pointless because I was beating the hell out of them. But after all the trouble I went through to get 'em, I felt like I had to break the sombitches out at least once.

Everyone agreed afterward that it was a lot of fun to play unplugged & that we should definitely do more shows this way.

Black Metal Birthday

2007-04-01T18:46:00.000-04:00

2007-03-31
Thee Ravari Tomb

DEVILCAKE + 10 other bands.......

The gig was Charlie Aggression's present to himself. He asked all of his favorite local metal bands to play his birthday for free. All 11 of us.

The event kicked off early, like 6:30pm. Devilcake played later, like in the 9:30pm region.

Let's see, we hadn't rehearsed in like three weeks & I was pretty rusty on the drums at our night-before practice session. We (or was it Satan) pieced together a 25-minute set, tight as ya like. Heavy on the heavy, light on the relief.

I got to Theee Ravariiie Tomb at 8:30, just in time to find Brian & Michelle walking around to the back door. Except they didn't know which door was the actual, like, door to get in through. That sentence makes sense if you've been there.

So, we were the first ones in the place. Gourley pulled up two seconds later, um, carrying my drums in his car. What a guy. I graciously gave him a hand with carrying all of my shit into the place. Ha. Then Michael Bill & Ashley appeared in the parking lot just like two apparitions. One big one with a ZOMBY WOOF shirt.

A band was finishing their set as we walked in. And after about 10 minutes, the next band started & they were heavy as shit. I mean, heavy heavy and professional. They totally had their shit together. They were so much heavier than us. Like, um, Opeth without all the wimpy parts. Just, blastbeats and death grooves and what have you. I mean, damn. I couldn't hear their name.

The place gradually filled up with metalheads of all description. Another band played, whose name I also didn't catch. They were a very loud trio that played something like progressive death metal noise. Um, like Stickdog plus Fudge Tunnel or whatever. Not bad for 20 minutes.

Steve & Rachel came in at that point. I was relieved to see that Rachel didn't opt for the Shaw Blades show after all. So her Devilcake attendance record is still clean.

Then it was our turn to, uh, do our thing. I was going to say it was our turn to rock, but was it really? "Rock" is a relative term. We were like comic relief after the unbelievable heaviness of the day. Except no one really laughed except us. Again.

For the first time in the modern era, I actually set all my drum shit up BEFORE we went on stage. Imagine that! And also for the first time in the modern era, I played decently & settled into a groove immediately. Holy frickin' crap!?!!??!

Steve, unfortunately, had no such luck as we were rushed along by the soundman before our set. His guitar was getting no signal & it was kind of scary for a few minutes there. Luckily he figured it out & we were able to launch into the set... which was something along the lines of

WIENERMOBILE
I WANT A BIG MAC
HANDS OFF MY OREOS
FRIBBLE
CARMEL KNOWLEDGE
MARSHMALLOW
PIZZA PARTY
BURN SANDWICH BURN

Oh man, I was sweatin' up a storm. I broke two, count 'em, TWO sticks. I was beating the hell out of everything & the mic on the mounted tom kept falling off, impeding my savagery. And then the bass drum beater kept getting stuck in my pants. Ha. My cheap-ass cymbal stands crept toward the edge of the drum riser every time I hit them. Which was often, obviously.

And yet I still found time to sing along, act a fool, have some fun. It was nice.

I don't think Gourley was as into it as usual. He seemed kind of subdued, maybe all of the metal-studded black metal fans & bands in the audience were putting him off. I don't know. Michael Bill and Brian were rock solid. Except I couldn't hear Brian on the last couple of songs. I think he had fun, it was his first gig ever.

I think Big Mac was pretty damn heavy, at least it sounded good to me. I love Burn Sandwich Burn but it was just a punishing dirge after I blew my proverbial (okay, actual) wad during Pizza Party. See, I thought we'd finish with Pizza Party & be done. But no.

As soon as we finished playing, I started pulling all of my stuff off the stage, which, again, I don't usually do. I usually just stand on the drum riser like a big tit that's in the way. And take my sweet time breaking stuff down. Not no mo'.

Then I had a 'pizza party' of my own over in the corner, with the two cold Hound Dog's pizzas that Gourley got earlier. Mmmmmm, forbidden cheesy pizza. I was literally trying to break down stands with one hand & hold pizza with the other. Typically shambolic.

So, there you have it. Another Devilcake gig in which we didn't sound like any of the other bands & we just alienated everyone but laughed at ourselves in the process.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2006 at Ravari Room

2006-10-01T22:42:00.001-04:00

FOOL'S CROWN
DEVILCAKE
EVE OF SHADOW
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Ravari Room

It was kind of a strange night all around, so I'll have to rely on the opinions of everyone else.

Eve of Shadow included members of a band we played with in the Midgard Comics days. They were like a black metal version of Korn or something. The keyboard dude headbanged more than everyone. It was cool.

Fool's Crown included Jim Swanson, whom I've known for approximately forever. I think since about 1985 or 1986, something like that. I haven't seen him in a long long long time, so long that I did no recognize him at first. We were in a band together in the late 80s. He's easily the greatest drummer I've played with. And the dude isn't even a full-time drummer.
In Fool's Crown he plays bass. So, there. I mean, I play bass and drums but Jim SLAYS on all instrumentation. Me, I just have a go. That's all I can do is have a go. Take a crack, that kind of thing. At any rate, it was sweet as pie to see Jim.

Meanwhile I think Michael Bill had the biggest posse in the whole place. I can't say I saw that one coming. But hey, it's about damn time.

The venue was not packed out to the gills. Not overrun with drunks like last time. Just a nice clutch of hardcore peeps down front for the whole set.

And can I just say that it cracks me up that Michael Bill can still come up with shit like asking...what's the stupidest song we could open with, that we've never opened with before? Answer below.

The set was a humorous blend. Drumming-wise, I didn't have as many problems as last time. I knew in advance which pieces of the drum set would come loose during every song. Playing-wise, I threw a few clangers. But, again, hopefully not as many as last time.

I do think the BURN SANDWICH BURN into SAUERKRAUT LURKING followed by I WANT A FUCKING BIG MAC before MARSHMALLOW was kind of a long bunch of plodding. But that's what happens when we insist on using John Cage approved methods of chance determination for setlist construction.

We played
CHICKEN NUGGETS OF SIN (with the old school BOOOBIEESSSSS intro)
PIZZA PARTY
BURN SANDWICH BURN
SAUERKRAUT LURKING
I WANT A FUCKING BIG MAC
MARSHMALLOW
CARMEL KNOWLEDGE
HANDS OFF MY MOTHERFUCKING OREOS
SALAD BAR MAN (including BLACK SABBATH'S "RAT SALAD" in the middle)
I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT SATAN
WEENUSMOBILE
FRIBBLE

I didn't break anything or drop anything. I did get blisters on my hands & fingers though. Which is fine. I didn't draw blood, so it's all fine.

Steve sounded great. Michael Bill sounded great. Gourley was on fire, as usual.

Oh yeah & the soundman kicked ass. He apparently works/worked at Thee Alrosa, so he's got his shit together. & the rumor is that he was running sound at Alrosa on THE infamous night there. Fuck.

So anyway. See y'all next month, hopefully. Hopefully my glam rock alter ego will be signing in.

PRETTY PLEEZE!!!!

JULY 1, 2006 RAVARI ROOM

2006-07-05T09:55:00.000-04:00

Around 1am I BOLTED up to Ravari Room. MCB and Steve were outside. we chatted briefly while a band finished playing. Then we took our shit in. By "we" I mean "they". Gourley not only drove my drums there, but he loaded them in too. It was super sweet.

Assembling the drums was baffling. I took a long time and even once I thought everything was in place, it really wasn't. Good god. The fucking snare drum moved every time I hit it! Ditto for the wimpy fucking crash cymbal stand. It inched away slowly. Hm. I wanted it raw and brutal, didn't I.

The snare and hi-hat were interfering with each other. The snare mic kept falling off the little clippy stand thing. No one noticed. The hi-hat cymbals were just flappy & loose pretty much the whole time. And the tom mics blocked the heads! Shambolic.

Good god. And remember how excited I was about all the new arrangements we've been working on? Feh. Forgotten. Almost entirely. I played my old old old drum parts when I could remember them.

Marshmallow got off to a decent start. I'm getting ahead of myself already though. Gourley has worked at Ravari Room for a couple of years now, I think. All the people who work there (it's a small army) just know him as this nice, quiet, calm dude. So they all went APESHIT when they saw him with devil horns and no shirt on. He was already running through his repetoire of opening lines before we even started playing. WE ARE DEVILCAKE! FROM COLUMBUS OHIO! The audience was very drunk but happily so and very um dancey. I haven't seen such disgraceful moshing and shoving between Devilcake audience members in decades, it was excellent.

Okay, so Marshmallow. I remembered to play it slow as shit. After that... I was lucky to finish a couple of the songs. Ha. Wienermobile, my new nemesis - due to the tempo & the fiddliness - I accidentally took that one at full speed. It was a mistake to play it that fast. Oh well. It kicked my ass but I only missed a couple of beats. Salad Bar Man was a clusterfuck, apart from our injection of Black Sabbath's "Rat Salad", which we've rehearsed to near-perfection. Rat Salad Bar Man. The Salad Bar Man part of the song was a clusterfuck. Um, we played Steve's new anthem okay. Carmel Knowledge. I Can't Believe It's Not Satan... I don't know, I was bored by the second verse but I think the audience was still shoving and bickering among itself. Gloriously.

Pizza Party feels increasingly pointless for some reason. I was tempted to yell my old backing vocal bit but I was frankly lucky just to be keeping time by then. I had enough plates spinning in the proverbial air as it was.

Chicken Nuggets Of Sin was okay. I mean, I don't know if it's musically relevant anymore (or if it ever was), but we kept it spinning pretty well. Fribble went over nicely. Too bad I could only hit the toms at like 40% strength due to them being blocked by fucking microphones. Hands Off My Oreos was okay, nothing to write home about.

Last call was called. We played a couple more. The audience - mostly Gourley's drunk-ass coworkers - went NUTS. I mean truly insane. Someone stole all of our setlists! Everyone was high fiving Gourley and saying they didn't know he had it in him etc etc.

I was frankly embarassed by my shitty ass drumming. I thought I really fucked the pooch the entire time. And yet... that's the biggest 'pit' we've had in, as I say, maybe ever. (Which, how come no one ever danced when I was playing bass? All I ever wanted a small cluster of people to yell at/with!)

Since the set was so short & I'm not drumming at full capacity, I was still somewhat energetic afterwards. Relatively, I mean. Plus Gourley took my drums back too! I didn't have to lift them once. How awesome is that shit.

I want to complain about the set but frankly if people are DANCING, then there's nothing to complain about. It reminded me of the first time we played at High Five way back in the 1800s. Lots of drunk people there too. Not in a bad way, strangely enough.

MAY 2006 PIX

2006-05-10T10:41:00.000-04:00

logo

2006-05-06T10:38:00.000-04:00

Another day at Bernie's

2005-09-07T10:21:00.000-04:00

Bernie's - Tuesday September 6th, 2005
VERBAL ABUSE - IN DEFIANCE - FANG - Devil Cake

I don't remember exactly the last time we played Bernie's. I think it might have been the New Years show with Tom Foolery. Or not. (I just checked... it was with Tom Foolery, but instead it was Wednesday, April 30, 2003) Anyhoo... who cares about that show.

I got to Bernie's around 8pm. I thought I was pushing it a bit for parking since it was to be an all ages show and supposedly we were the first band and were going on at 9pm. MCB and Gourley were there already. I got lucky and there was a space available. One of the real problems with playing at Bernie's. The parking sucks. And it's not their fault really. It's just campus.

So MCB, Gourley and I sat around and chatted about why Metallica sucks. Additionally, we watched as some 'painters' worked on a house behind the parking lot. They got into the house by crawling into an upstairs bedroom window. Hmmm.... Whatever. I looked and the place did indeed appear to be empty, so there ya go. We also watched the tow trucks from Shamrock pass by multiple times and attempt to tow the same car three times. Each time the guy who owned the car came out and said 'This is a Buckeye property and I work for Buckeye Painting'. Eventually, he just moved his car to the free lot that we were in... though he got stopped by the cops cause he drove 10 feet the wrong way down a one way alley to get the the spot. I think he had to explain that he literally was coming from the parking lot next door.

Anyways... soon it was 8:30pm and Ian and Steve still were nowhere to be found. Nor were the other bands. Nor was the guy from Bernie's who books the bands. Of course, I am freeing out. MCB punched me in the face and told me to chill out. Ok... so he didn't punch me in the face... but he did tell me to chill out. Around 8:45pm the booking guy showed up and said he had heard from the two touring bands and that they had just left wherever they were and that it would be a little while for them to get there. Around that time both Steve and Ian showed up. Everyone pitched in and helped carry my dumbass drums (complete with new bass drum head that I had broken at the previous practice) downstairs.

I set up. Everyone mulled around or tuned guitars. Ian remembered a few Kiss tunes on his bass. I forget which ones they were already. One was a Gene Simmons song. The other, if I remember was a song that Ace sang on. But all the names are escaping me right now.

Around 9:45, I asked Gourley what time it was. He said 'a quarter to ten. Were supposed to go on at 10'. Ok. About 5 minutes later the sound guy says to me, 'Let's get this thing going'. So I told Gourley 'Let's rock'.

We all took our places... and rocked. I don't remember much of it. We played and then it was over. I know I was a bit tired half the way through, for no apparent reason. I don't think I fucked up too much. A little, yes. Alot, no. I missed a few cymbal crashes and my double bass flams have seen better days. But in my defense, the floor around the drums had a few holes in it. Or something.

Steve taped the show. It will be interesting to watch that since I honestly don't have much recollection of it. I know that it wasn't horrible and that there were no real trainwrecks. It was DARK in there (a whopping 3 colored 60 watt bulbs and the lighting from the rest of the bar was all that there was... but it is very good for mood... it's nice and dark), so hopefully the video came out. Actually, it might not be a problem at all since, now that I kinda think about it, they left the house lights on. I think. Or maybe not. I dunno. STEVE, BRING A COPY OF THE GIG TO THE NEXT PRACTICE SO I CAN RELIVE THE EXPERIENCE SINCE I OBVIOUSLY WAS BRAIN DEAD.

All I know is that by 10:30pm, I was already on 315 and heading home. I had no interest in seeing the other bands, which is sad. Honestly, I don't think I was mentally at the gig. Or something. Words.

The set list was:
Pizza Party
Wienermobile
Salad Bar Man
Hands Off My Oreos
Burn Sandwich Burn
Red Pop
Cereal & Beer
Primavera Primadonna
Fribble

Sorry you weren't there. :-P

----fin----

SON OF THE RETURN OF MORE UNNECESSARY DETAIL 3

2005-08-15T10:17:00.000-04:00

Around dinnertime, MCB called to say he was too sick to go to the show. Too sick to rock. I couldn't remember what time we were due to converge at Ruby Tuesday's so I lingered uneasily at home until 8:30pm. I must've gotten there a little before 9. I saw Mark Ward at the bar, he of Ramsey and...drummer in my first band in high school, the Uncultured. Little piece of trivia for you. Darrin & Maryann were already making themselves at home. Gourley showed up, followed eventually by Steve & Rachel.

The first band set up slowly & did a quick soundcheck. Then began the truly interminable lingering. Holy hell. I'm still not sure how I held out. After 30-45 minutes, Phantodswent on. The guitar, bass and drums were locked in on some kind of Fantomas/Mr Bungle/King Crimson/bright-twang preset that, for me, destroyed as it created. They'd play a thrash thing into a doom riff off the back of this fucking clean guitar tone and then just slam to a halt. One of the songs had some truly insane, inspired syncopation that just blew me clean away. Personally, musically, emotionally, Fantods' set was devastating. And I haven't even mentioned the singer's voice & her two keyboards. The singing was intelligent & tuneful and somehow brought the melange of sounds & moods to a catchy, near-pop fore. Which is no easy feat. Their sound is unique. And, yes, I'm in love.

Ramsey went on at midnight & hogged the stage forever. They were nice guys but fucking hell. This pushed everything for us back even further...we went on around 1am! What is the point of that, I axe you. I mean, really.

I was dead tired before we even started and tried to make up for it by pushing myself harder. It was pretty terrible. We opened with a bunch of new songs which proved to be my undoing because oops I forgot how they went. It was shambolic and there was nothing to hide behind but shouting, belligerence and being infantile. I don't know if we ever got on track, musically. Steve was/is/always will be a professional, a rock, the beacon of calm confidence, a ROCK island in a sea of lame futility. The rest of us couldn't even remember the old songs most of the time. Our old songs. That we wrote. Yeesh. I got home around 2:30am, charred beyond recognition. And I have Steinberger shaped bruises around my torso.

Pics from Ruby Tuesday 8-12-05

2005-08-13T12:13:00.000-04:00

My wife Maryann brought along the digital camera. The lights were low, and in order to not look like we were playing in a basement, she didn't use flash much. That means all the photos will look like a painting by Salvador Dali. So, enjoy.

Here is a very nice poster someone had made up for the show.

Our name on the chalk boad at Ruby Tuesdays

This is me in my kick ass black Kiss Creatures bootleg T-shirt

Ian says "Metal."

Setting up my crap.

In order to play metal, I must be entranced by the underworld

Ian face says it all, "Why are you doing this to me?"

Ian is ready to rock with his cowboy hat and black cape!

We are Devilcake. And we rock. (this is my fave foto by the way)

Maryann spotted a Two-Headed Ian and quickly took a picture of it.

More rocking at Ruby Tuesday's

Steve shreading with his cowboy hat on

And now, Devilcake performs the world's best stage trick eva...

...Double-Headed Devilcake!!!

We rocked until 2am...

...and in a puff of red smoke, we were gone.

-fin-

D's account for Ruby Tuesday 8-12-05

2005-08-13T11:53:00.000-04:00

Ruby Tuesday's - Friday August 12th, 2005
THE PHANTODS - RAMSEY - DEVIL CAKE

The last time we played at Ruby Tuesdays it was my first gig with the band, way back on May 21st 2001. Wow. Not sure why my brain thought it was 2002, but so be it, it was 2001. I barely remember that gig at all now. I remember the excitement of doing my first sound check which is on a camcorder tape somewhere out there. I actually think I have the VHS copy of that show. How about that.

(if you want to get to the gig stuff, jump ahead like 10 paragraphs)

Anyways, this was Devil Cake's show tonight. We were headliners, which usually means we go on really really really late after being there for 6 hours. Tonight would be no exception, and I even left late by my standards. Maryann and I went to BW3s and had some awesome chicken fingers (since I've determined you get more bang for your buck by eating chicken fingers rather than boneless wings). It was good eating and we also played a little NTN trivia while we were at it. Very relaxing. No freaking out, just calm and will a belly full o chicken. Gots home around 7:30. I checked to make sure that the new hi-hat clutch would work (since my originally Yamaha was completely stripped). It did. Yay! That's one less thing I have to worry about. I also installed a new cymbal protector (it prevents keyholing) for Ian's old Sonor stand. That installed with a slight modification as well. Word. With all things in working order, I dismantled the drum kit and got it packed into the car. By 8:15pm, we were on the road.

By 8:40ish, we were driving around the block that Ruby Tuesdays was on. The parking for this place sucks worse than any other bar we have ever played at. They are basically right in the middle of a large area of campus apartments and they have no actual parking lot. (I've heard rumors of a parking lot behind Ruby Tuesdays, but all I saw in the alley was triple deep parking for the apartments). After the 3rd time around the block, I parked and was basically on the opposite end of the block (but still on Summit Ave) that Ruby Tuesdays was on, which was do able since it seemed to be a short block.

I was happy to see that there were actually people at the bar tonight. Seems that RTs was having a lil ol cookout. I did not partake of any said bbq though. So anyhoo, we went in looking around for some of the DC peeps. Mike Bill had mentioned that he would be showing up around that time, as did Ian. However, there were no peeps. I showed Maryann around the bar. It was a little bit cleaner than I remember. Course, then I showed her the basement. When we played there, part of the basement section was still open with a pool table. This was no longer, like due to health violations. And the bathrooms were atrocious. But it is a bar, what the fuck do you want? I picked up a couple of bottles of Miller Light and we sat in the room with the stage, which, while not quiet, was away from the rest of the inhabitants who were drinking away and playing pool.

Ian showed up right around 9pm. It was at this time he informed me that MCB would not be playing with us tonight. Seems he had been puking up his guts for nearly 24 hours. That sounds like fun. We sat around and chatted a bunch about anything that popped into our heads. I believe Gourley showed up next around 9:30 I think. He was helping move in gear for one of the other bands. I thought it was the Phantods, but wtf do I know. *shrug* So anyways, then Steve and Rachel showed up around 10pm. By this time we were worried that Steve wasn't going to show up and pondered how we would go over as an acoustic jazz trio. It actually sounded amusing enough to consider.

Around 10 or 10:15, The Phantods did their sound check. Yay! About this time I put in my ear plugs. After the last Little Brothers gig, where my ears rang or felt muffled for 2 days after, I decided that I needed to protect my hearing a bit better. I already have a little bit of tinitus (rrrriiiiiinnnggg) now, and if music is something that I really enjoy listening to, I need to do what I can to at least slow down the process of me going deaf.

The Phantods took the stage around 11pm. By this time, Ian already wanted to go home. He doesn't do well sitting around for 2 hours doing nothing and also knowing that it will be a miracle if we go on anytime before 1 am. They played their set and I was very pleasantly surprised. Everyone I talked to kept reminding me that this was a big ol hippy bar. And there were a few locals hanging out that would have supported that stereotype. But The Phantods, in my opinion, were not playing hippie music. I don't know what you would call it. The closest I can come is saying that it was like listening to what would happen if members from The Police and Voivod formed a band and hired a female vocalist / keyboard player. I'm sure Ian can actually name a band that they sound like but I am not that well-versed. Their drummer was a frickin' monster on the drums. Kudos to him if he be reading this. The others weren't so bad either. At certain times during the set, when they were just pulling of some insane shit, I looked over at Ian and he was just laughing at the insanity. So was the drunk guy who was practically drinking out of a pitcher. They wrapped up their set around 11:30ish. They had free CDs, but I was not quick enough to nab one, which is too bad 'cause I pretty much liked everything they played.

Ramsey started to set up and that is when I realized that said drunk guy was in the band. And setting up both a keyboard and guitar rig. Then the singer guy was setting up a guitar rig and a keyboard rig as well. And the bassist was sporting dreads and a Soundgarden Badmotorfinger T-shirt. Huh? I dunno. They finished setting up, got more beers and waited for midnight to roll around to get started. What occurred next is really a scarring blur. For the first song, both the singer and drunk due took their places behind their keyboards. The singers keyboard was in tune. The drunk dudes was an old analog Roland. It was not in tune. It's like hearing fingernails across a blackboard. And he had no idea how out of tune he was. After that song, they made an attempt to tune his Roland, which did not go well. They would almost have it and then the guy would crank it way off up or down. It was torture. I don't think his guitar was in tune either, well, at least it didn't seem that way. I believe he could be a decent guitar player if he sobered up. They also played 'Hold On Loosely' by 38 Special which was about the only thing I could remotely stomach, even though some of the singing was strained.

At 12:30, while they were still playing, Ian and I left to go load up the drum gear. It was a much needed break. I pulled the car up to the bar and we unloaded. By the time the last drum was loaded into the building, they were done. Thank goodness. It took a while for the drummer to take his stuff down. He seemed nice enough (and appeared sober enough) and was very apologetic about taking so long. I told him not to sweat since I too was a drummer and understood that it is almost always the drummer that takes the longer to set up and tear down. We just have more shit to deal with.

By 1am, it was our time to rock. I changed into the killer black Kiss 'Creatures of the Night' bootleg t-shirt that my wife bought for me, and took the stage. We kicked it off with a couple of new MCB tunes 'Burn Sandwich Burn' and 'That's When The Onions Attack'. Those actually went fairly well. Up next was another new one that I wrote called 'Peaches and Cream'. So far so good. I was trying to stay loose and not flail around a bunch since we had 11 MORE SONGS TO PLAY. Yeah, it was a long setlist since we were the 'headliners'.

'Pizza Party' and 'Salad Bar Man' were up next. Those didn't go too badly I don't think. Then came 'Fribble' in the middle of the set. It officially has been everywhere in the set (the usual closer, the opener at the last gig, and solidly in the middle of the set for this gig) which is amusing. I was also starting to get a bit tired and fuzzy minded by this point. I sorta forgot the beginning of Fribble but quickly recovered after a few bars. Up next was 'Hands Off My Oreos'. Good think I didn't have to start this song 'cause my memory was getting fuzzier. Steve kicked in the initial guitar riff (which I don't have to play during) and it all came back to me. Halfway done, and already on shaky ground.

Up next was 'Marshmallow' which was the first real train wreck. I remembered the initial cymbal roll part and that was it. I counted off 4 and... had no idea where I was or how the song went. I was looking a Steve to try to desperately remember how the song went. This is a song that has been included in practically every set I have every played and I drew a complete blank. After the gig, when I was talking to Steve, it turns out he was completely lost. He was looking to ME to remember how to play it as well. By the second verse, I finally figured out what the fuck I was doing, but it dealt a severe blow to my confidence in completing the friggin show and we were only half done.

Up next was 'Wienermobile'. I did an okay job of staying relaxed during that song. Only the fills at the end of the song were completely cruddy, but decent considering how tired I was feeling. After that was another new one I wrote called 'Primavera Primadonna' which went okay. After that was the fast and always crowd pleaser, especially at bars, 'Cereal N Beer'. Somehow, regardless of how fast that song is, it tends to loosen me up for some reason. I don't know why.

Then came 'Red Pop', another blistering song. There is one part where I get to just hammer on the cymbal like it was a ride. Tonight it decided that it would start spin like a wounded UFO. Eventually the nut came off and at the last crash of Red Pop, the cymbal nearly fell off the stand. I got up from behind he drums to reposition the cymbal and realized that I had no idea where the nut was. Without it, the cymbal can practically fall right off the stand.

The next thing I know, Gourley is introducing 'Sacrificial Leg Of Lamb', so get back behind the kit. For some reason, as of late, I cannot seem to play this song to save my life. And the sad thing is that I'm the person who wrote it. I don't know why, but I just can't seem to wrap my head around the drum part. I am just clueless. It's fairly simple, just keep time with the high hat until the second part of the verse. How hard can that be? Well, tonight, it was impossible. I had no idea what I was doing and it was one of the most horrible sounding things I have ever heard me play. Horrible. I can't express my frustration with not being able to play this fucking song. It's a fucking Devilcake song. It's not quantum physics.

After the destruction of that song was over, I was looking around to see if I could find that fucking nut for the cymbal stand. I leaned over my drum kit to see if it fell in front of the drums. The next thing I know, I have a big ol' face full of Gourley ass. He can't see for shit without his glasses, so he was bending over to read the set list. Steve was video taping this show, so I am sure that moment looks, well, interesting. Finally we capped off the night with 'Pilot Light' which went fairly well, I think. I was a bit hindered since I was worried about the other cymbal flying off, but overall, it well alright. And like that it was over around 2am.

I have to say, I'm not fond of Pilot Light being the closer. I was never fond of ending the set with Fribble either. The final song, to me, should have that thing at the end where everyone holds the last note and basically beats the crap out of their instruments which the singer says, 'We are Devilcake. Thanks for showing up and not throwing shit at us. Goodnight!'.

So back to the evening, Maryann went and moved the car to the side of the bar. I was breaking down the set when Ian said, 'Hey, your wife pulled up the car around back. I'm fucking outta here'. Ok... that's not a direct quote, but I do appreciate that he came in and told me my wife was waiting on me. He could have just fecked off like I know he wanted to. Gourley and Steve helped take the rest o the shit out the car. We hung out a little bit and talked about the $37 dollars we made that night. (Actually, I think the owner or the singer from Ramsey or someone said that it was $37 for everyone, meaning that the 37 dollars would be split three ways, but Gourley insisted that it was $37 dollars for us. Oh well, as we discussed, it'll be money for printing up a new batch of t-shirts. Gourley had an idea where the pentagram would have a bite out of it. I think that is frigggin hilarious.

They we all said 'Later!'. Maryann and I stopped in at ol' White Castles and picked up a #1 combo each. When we got home I realized the motherfucker didn't pack my onion chips. Oh well. I didn't need them anyways. We ate, starting watching Iron Chef @ 3am, but soon the exhaustion set in and we went to bed.

The set list, in case you didn't piece it together (you lazy punk) was:
Burn Sandwich Burn
Onions (s.o.s.o.n.i.o.n.s)
Peaches N Cream
Pizza Party
Salad Bar Man (Fuckin eh, dude)
Fribble
Hands Off My Oreos
Marshmallow
Weinermobile
Primavera Prima Donna
Cereal N Beer
Red Pop
Sacrificial Leg of Lamb
Pilot Light

THE END. (pictures soon to follow)

Pictures Phase II

2005-07-13T22:33:00.000-04:00

Hang on to your hats... It's Devilcake!

Gourley is such a great singer with the audience. Someone yelled "Show us the top of your head!" and he did. True story.

"Ladies and gentlemen, on the bass - Stu Hamm uhhh... Ian Stewart!"

Proof that Darrin uses giant strawberry Twizzlers as drumsticks.

I'm a pickin'.

Among other things, Gourley and Steve can stand on walls while playing.

I like this one. It looks as if Ian has donned his special "goggles."

Why does it look like I'm playing an acoustic?

Steve's a grinnin'.

Darrin smells something. Two words. White Castle.

"This is how much you love Devilcake."

Devilcake pics from Little Brothers...

2005-07-11T10:46:00.000-04:00

Here's the proof. DEVIL CAKE!

I told Darrin to make a face, but he refused...

I'm sure there's a "wearing your cup without a jock strap" joke in there somewhere...

Classic Gourley. "Scream for me Columbus! Scream for me!"

Apparently I was about to punch someone. I don't remember doing this at all.

Proof that Gourley is entertaining to us as well as the crowd...

Ian and Darrin making "smoochie" faces at each other. The rest of us are doing it too, just so you know...

Steve's version of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" album cover...

Darrin looks like a midget behind the drums for some reason. Mmmmm... midgets...

Here I am working too hard on a "G" chord while Gourley is being possessed by Satan.

Nice shot of Steve...

Why does it look like I'm wearing velvet pants?

Here's a shot using the flash, which is just hilarious. It looks like we're playing in someone's basement. The look on Gourley's face is classic. Hey Mike, you were looking for a T-shirt design...

vampire cowbwah in natural habitat

2005-07-09T14:05:00.000-04:00

LITTLE BROTHERS

2005-07-09T11:01:00.000-04:00

POOR ORIGINALS | DEVILCAKE | LOS PEPES
Little Brothers
Friday, July 8, 2005

Gourley got a call on Wednesday asking if we could fill in for another band at Little Brothers. We had an emergency rehearsal on Thursday, which we did instrumentally. Gourley suggested a few uptempo songs via email. The sequence of titles wasn't intended to be a setlist but we made it into one anyway. Hence the weirdest setlist we've ever played, I think. Marvelous.

As always, we got to Little Brothers way too fucking early before the show. The doors weren't open, so we walked to White Castle & back. Then it rained and we all sat in our cars until one of the other bands showed up - Poor Originals. They got a call three hours beforehand to fill in.

Organization! Professionalism! Ha. Whatever, so the administrative end was a little mushy, but, rock & roll and administration have very little to do with each other, right? Right.

Poor Originals soundchecked and then lingered for 45 minutes or so. There was a small clutch of people at the tables in front of the stage. Poor Originals, no shit, every song was the exact same tempo, with the same thrash beat. The guitarist on the right was annoying onstage and made me question my own motivations for wanting to do the rock & roll thing again. Y'know? It's late, it's Friday, we should be having fun, not being subjected to this over-loud, monotonous scree. They sucked the life out of me. The other guitarist literally strummed the same for every song, a technique I'd love to learn, I'm obviously doing it wrong & moving waaaaay too much. After 10-12 iterations of the one sonic blueprint, they vacated the stage. Who's on next? Is it us? Is it the peepees? No, it's us. Phew.

I wouldn't even say we had a handfull of peeps, I'd call it a clenched fist of peeps. The important thing is that they didn't lose patience and they even seemed to enjoy our turn on the stage. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We took our time setting up. It was relaxed, laid back, jovial, comfortable. Usually 'being comfortable' isn't the kind of thing you'd take notice of, but for us...two years (almost to the day) since we last played at Little Brothers, the vibe was important.

Steve gave Tera the new intro CD, which promptly failed to work. He made the intro on his PC, it includes hellish sound effects and the harmonized guitar solo from "Fribble." It reminds me of Slayer "Hell Awaits." I gave a verbal approximation of the intro CD into the mic and then we were off & running. Opening with "Fribble." Unprecedented.

Gourley & I were both kind of rusty. Our voices gave out pretty quickly & we were both winded. I struggled with the backing vocals, not sure if I should just hover over the mic & sing everything or stand back by the drums & just concentrate on playing the bass. In the end, I did a lot of both and eventually loosened up enough to not notice or care.

"Salad Bar Man" was second. Darrin's new "Peaches & Cream" was in there somewhere. And we closed with his other new one - my favorite of his newest batch of songs - "Pilot Light." I waited all day to sing "turn on the pilot light, let's get it on tonight" and finally got my chance. Party! I hope it didn't ruin the song. That's the first time I've ever sung on it. "Hands Off My Oreos" was nice, that's when I finally caught my stride, I think. As usual, I was too busy trying not to kick anybody or otherwise cause catastrophe to notice anything else. Which is a good sign. I think the band is getting stronger, more mature, more fuckin' metal, and hopefully even more entertaining as we go. We've always been good at amusing ourselves but hopefully now we can include everyone else. And:

It's always nice when people clap and respond positively to us onstage and I don't take that for granted. You guys fucking rock! I'd rather have a clutched fist of true peeps than 1,000 hostile GWAR fanatics anyday.

I forget the order but I'm pretty sure we played

Fribble
Salad Bar Man
Pizza Party
Wienermobile
Marshmallow
Hands Off My Oreos
Peaches & Cream
Red Pop
Cereal & Beer
Pilot Light

Been two years gone...

2005-07-09T10:49:00.000-04:00

POOR ORIGINALS + DEVILCAKE + LOS PEPES
Little Brothers
Friday, July 8th, 2005

Well, it was almost exactly two years ago that we played at Little Brothers (which was on 7/3/2003 for those keeping track). I got to the venue early as always, as parking is a real pain in the keesters when there are alot of bands playing. Mike C Bill was already there when I arrived. We shot the shit for a while. Ian showed up around 1/2 hour after that. We ran down to White Castles for some grub. I got a #1 with cheese and a RED POP. They should call it a #2 with cheese cause later in the night, that's all it really was. My poor choice in eating a large sized Rally's Double Barbeque Bacon Cheeseburger for lunch and then throwing four Whiteys on top of that was a nearly fatal.

Anyhoo...

We got back, with White Castles in hand and Steve, Rachel and a friend of theirs were waiting on us. Just as we got there, though, the rain started up and we all took refuge in our cars. Another band showed up and somehow got the people inside to open up the doors. DOH! After the rain subsided, I got out of my car and talked to the other bandies. Seems that while we thought we had a tight schedule being called 3 days prior to the gig, they got called 3 HOURS before the gig. They were just hoping that the drummer would show up. He did show up, however he had no drumsticks, which I found amusing. I gave him a pair of the $2 drumsticks and told him to beware of splinters. That of course was prophetic.

Gourley showed up rather early as well, probably by 8:30 or so. Gave him the lyrics for Pilot Light and sent him on his way. Gourley knew the guys in Los Pepes, but they were no where to be found.

Fast forward 2 hours later. Ian had managed drink his weight in water by then. I had managed to get rid of my weight in 'excess'. Los Pepes finally took the stage and rammed through around 10 songs in the punk metal vein. Lots of snare action. The guy was like a drum machine. But it proved to be a touch too much for my taste. Most of the songs were similar sounding. Like I have room to talk, but I am just staing my opinion. I enjoyed the first few, but then my ears starting ringing a little and then it just got on my nerves. Plus I still wasn't feeling so hot, so I can't blame them for all of my discomfort. At some point, Ian went over in front of the soundboard. I followed suit, but I stay for a grand total of 30 seconds because it was so brutally loud that it just hurt. I couldn't really hear the music anymore, it was just painful static. So I retreated to the conforts of the bar where it was a bit quieter. A few songs later, they were done. Oh yeah, the drummer shreaded those sticks I gave him. And this is why I rarely buy drumsticks that cost more than $2 a pair.

They got their crap off the stage, we put our crap on the stage. And then we rocked a set of fairly fast songs. I have to admit that after the first 3 songs it was a bit of a blur. I got tired fairly quickly but tried to hold my own by sweating profusely.

We started with Fribble, which is amusing only to us since we normally close with Fribble. Oh, we had 'intro' music but Tera the sound person couldn't get the CD player to like the intro that Steve burned onto a CD. DOH! No problem. Just kick it and go. The stick in my right hand was slightly warped which threw me off a little bit.

Next up was Pizza Party. I still still going strong at that point. Then came Weinermobile (sp?). I've never liked putting those two back to back. They both involve 'the stop' before each verse. Putting them back to back makes them sounds too similar to me (even though they are not), but maybe it's just me, and that is quite possible.

Salad Bar man was next. I believe I played this one a bit slower than normal. I think this is also the song during which I broke my stick. I still have the top part. Not sure where the bottom part went. We then played Hands Off My Oreos.

Up next was a new one, Peaches N Cream. Fast fast fast. This is pretty close to being pure punk, quite honestly. I missed quite a few cymbal crashes during this song. This song just wears me out, but I still like it... for now ;). And as if I wasn't tired enough, Red Pop came next, which we played at a blistering pace as well. I did get all the floor tom hits right this time (I actually went back and listened to the Shout At The Devilcake album to make sure I got it right). The double bass in the soung didn't sound too bad, but there were a couple double bass fills that left much to be desired. *shrug*

Marshmallow was next, and a nice break to have. It was slow and durgy or something. Words. I was practically passed out by this point, and not from drinking beer either (I had none last night). Then came Cereal n Beer. Super fast version. That quite possibly is the fastest we have ever played that live. Amazingly enough, I could hear Gourley singing the lyrics.

Finally, to end it all, was another new one called Pilot Light. Didn't sound too bad. I really like the harmonics part that the whole song is based around. I'm still not totally comfortable with the drums (since I wrote the guitar parts only) but I think I made a few revelations that might work in the future.

And then they were done. The crowd yelled 'Encore' (well, a least 2 people yelled that, and I'm pretty sure one of them was Rachel, and she could listen to us all night if she wanted to.) But alas, there was no encore. The final note ended and we started packing. The guys helped out, and that was cool of them since I was a bit foggy. I was packing up when Tera came around to move mics. I asked her if the other band was here and she said, 'I don't... know.' I asked Gourley if they were there since he knew a couple of the guys and he said 'I... think so.' About that time a guy with an amp passed in front of me and that question was answered. Not sure why I cared really. *shrug*

So the cars, got loaded up. We went in. Ian said he was splitting, so was MCB as was I. We went to bid farewell to Gourley, who was saying goodbye to Steve who was also leaving. I drove home, took a shower and was in bed around 1:30am.

In case you were too lazy to write down the set as I gave the play by play above, here is the set list:

Fribble
Pizza Party
Weinermobile
Salad Bar Man
Hands Off My Oreos
Peaches N Cream
Red Pop
Marshmallow
Cereal N Beer
Pilot Light

Later. Rock on!

-------------:D

2003-08-02T08:29:00.000-04:00

DEVILCAKE + other bands
High Five
Friday August 1, 2003

A waste of a mohawk. The guitar pick harvest was plentiful. I went in with three picks and left with twelve. Including my new favorite pick, a white Tortex "sharp." The short end comes to a point and it gives unbelievable attack on the bass strings. Just like those metal picks, only this thing doesn't scratch up the body and break all the strings.

The set list was something like

Wienermobile
Marshmallow
Cereal And Beer
Hands Off My Oreos
I Can't Believe It's Not Satan
Chicken Nuggets Of Sin
Salad Bar Man (by request)
Fribble

A short practice with a few drunk dudes from the other bands listening in. Am I breaking a sweat for this shit? Fuck no.

Guarding MCB's car out back afterwards, I noticed a van with a U Haul trailer attached to it, indicating that one of the other bands is on tour. And I realized at that exact moment that if last night is what touring is like, then I never want to experience it. It was depressing enough playing to nobody in my hometown. I can't imagine doing that shit in Colorado or something.

2003-07-11T14:37:00.000-04:00

I'm late in chiming in on this show...

7/03/03
Little Brothers
w/Tom Foolery and the Mistakes|Everlasting Godstopper

About a week before this show (alright a day), I took the opportunity to rid myself of some musical instrumentation that I didn't consider that I was getting much use out of. I took them into Guitar Center and magically (2 hours later) walked out with a shiny new keyboard amp (oooooooooh shiny). The result was the realization that now that my amp problems were solved (which, I think, had long been a source of my other on-stage mishaps) I got all crazy and thought about all the gear I could now safely play without thought of mishap.

A reality check from Ian "B.A." Stewart brought me back to the realization that "less quite possibly is more" on this night of nights. So...armed with only my shiny new amp and the keys-o (and a spare casio in the trunk as backup). I set out. Our car was packed full of non-instrumentation as well (the cross-which didn't get used, fog machine, tape deck for soundboard recording-which sounds freakin' awesome!, tapes, water...and of course our kick-ass new t-shirts), Nancy and I showed up at Little Brothers about 6:50...way the hell early.

The young'uns, Everlasting Godstopper, showed up (or were dropped off) about 8:30. I was seriously worried that some of them would have to be snuck into the venue (a la Gabe from the Newport show of forever ago). Nancy and I left the amassed posse (of MCB and his friend) and left in search of food. The search turned up fruitless and Nancy wound up with 1/2 of Maryann's sub and I would up with a bottle of water. Good thing...eating would have only led to bm's and there's no need for that before the show, trust me.

I can't say much more than what's already been said about the rest of the evening. I loved the way the keys-o sounded through the new amp...I hated the fact that we didn't have a set list...loved the fake blood from Ian's skull, but hated the dildo on Everlasting Godstopper's Mic (ok...hate is strong...but I just didn't understand what it was supposed to be...other than a dick that he sang into....in front of their parents (who I'm sure were in the audience) and I didn't know what that was all about).
And I hated that I felt like I was going to lose my voice at any second....I think it resulted in me holding back on some stellar backups (which thankfully, Ian jumped in on).

Some other positive things....Darrin's drums didn't move away from him (gotta love the power of a CinderBlock)....the sound mix was awesome. Ian's mohawk was fucking rad!

The T-shirts kicked ass...and I think we even sold one.

Tom Foolery et al continue to blow me away each time I see them. Their set was short and sweet, although they left out one of my favorites, "Oh No You Di'n't," they did play "Lab Partner" (or whatever it's real name is), which makes me laugh my ass off everytime because it makes me think of my lab partners in high school chemistry (Rich Damiano and Andy Mitry...yeah, lucky me).

We took the stage....Gourley and I started Marshmallow sans my significant other...and to be honest, the rest of the boys had me sweating a bit with their "delayed entrance" bit. But it worked out very cool...and felt very, very rock and roll to me.

The rest of the night was a blur of sweat, fake blood, headbanging and the like. At one point during Frankenstein's French Fries, I think Steve was trying to show me the chords (since it was quite apparent that I had forgotten them) and I thought to myself "well, it's not going to do much good....if I knew guitar chords, I wouldn't have traded my electric guitar for a keyboard amp...but such is the case when you're living life on the road).

I'm not going to put the list of songs....Darrin and Ian did a pretty good job...(but Ian did the Skull/Blood act during Chicken Nuggets...).

All in all, it was a great show...I think it was one of our best.

2003-07-08T08:11:00.000-04:00

DEVILCAKE | TOM FOOLERY & THE MISTAKES | EVERLASTING GOD STOPPER
Thursday, July 3, 2003
Little Brothers

Whenever we spend as much time preparing for a show as we did for this one, it usually bites us on the ass at some point. Or, as in the case of this evening, some points.

Starting a few weeks back we found ourselves re-learning old songs and other things we've never played live. We practiced them multiple times each and probably could've had a pretty fresh and decent set if we'd have remembered to include any of them other than Chicken Nuggets Of Sin and Spicy Beef Stick.

Nothing makes an old song more tempting to whip out for a live show than it being declared off limits. As is certainly the case with the long-entombed Spicy Beef Stick. It's a stupid song and everyone knows it. We stand to gain nothing as musicians or humans by playing this song. And yet, there it was in the set. Ha.

We neglected to make a set list again and again it bit us on the ass. Oh well. Sorry if I got snippy with anyone (ie Rachel) who thoughtfully suggested songs from the audience. I don't know what my deal is/was.

The evening began for me as soon as I got home from work. The hair clippers were put into action and soon a Mr T cut emerged. The hair wasn't long enough for the cut to be totally obvious, but I think it served the purpose.

I packed my car and found that I was lugging along more props and costume stuff (2 bags, 1 box) than actual musical equipment (1 bag, 1 amp). Hmm. Interesting.

No one knew what to expect for parking at Little Bros, considering it was the Red White & Boom ordeal and traffic was probably going to be pretty uncool. I got there last, of course, and basically sailed right in. No traffic to speak of and there was even one spot left in Little Bros' lot just for me. Then the interminable lingering began.

But it wasn't as bad as it could've been or has been for me in the past. I tend to get overly wound up in general, and milling around an empty rock club four hours before I'm due onstage is kind of a mindfuck for me sometimes.

Fortunately we had good conversation and a relaxed atmos in the Devilcake section of the house. The entourage was in good spirits and it kept me from being too much of a sour-ass. MCB amused himself by taking extremely terrible pictures of everyone in the band and then showing them to everyone else. Ambush photography. Catching people at their worst, revealing their true nature. Very arty. He could have a third career on his hands.

The very young Everlasting God Stopper went on first. They reminded us of us about fifteen years ago. Metal riffs, ghouly keys. Except their singer looks like a young Marilyn Manson. While ours more closely resembles a young Ernest Borgnine. EGS songs were a little samey and somewhat indistinct, and their presentation was a little bit on the pedestrian side, but I thought they were good. Give them some decent lights and a smoke machine and teach the singer one more note and they'll be a force to be reckoned with.

Tom Foolery went next and I think that's actually only the third time I've seen them play. We play with them constantly but I always miss them for whatever reason. I dig those guys and it's not just because they're friendly and give us props onstage all the time. Okay, well, maybe it is that.

But their songs are good too, and Kyle's an energetic, spazzzztic frontman and that's really all you can ask for from a band. Jeremy's little micro-drumset is totally hilarious. It's one of those little Yamaha (I think) deals with the little tiny drums. It looks like he shrunk it in the dryer. But it sounds great and the whole band sounded damn fine. They played most of the songs from their new CD. Which comes out in August! On Colossal Thumb! Buy it!

They dedicated a song to our Nancy, even. Then they kept messing it up. So I don't know if that aspect was dedicated to her too or not.

As soon as the Foolerys finished, we invaded the stage with our BS, much of which was never unpacked or positioned by the time we actually started playing. The light-up cross was still beside the stage when we finished playing. The heavy wooden coffin never had its light plugged in and indeed it was still laying flat on the stage when we began the set. And there was a chair on the stage, near Gourley, and I still don't know why. Kyle had his amp on it, I think. And we never thought to remove it.

Because I guess the stage was probably starting to look a little barren. We have to have things like chairs on the stage. To take up space. Because there's only six of us up there, with all our amps and drums and stuff. Bumping into each other and shit.

Todd went out first and started a Nancy-less Marshmallow. Gourley went out next. I told him to ask the soundperson to turn out the stage lights. And I didn't mean for him to ask this from the stage, through the PA. I meant for him (or anyone) to walk over to the soundboard and deliver the request directly. That way we wouldn't be trying to rock in the full glare of all the lights, and our little ghouly effects would look better.

So Gourley goes out and the crowd starts clapping and he right into the mic he asks "can you turn out the house lights? thanks." Which, the house lights had been off the entire time. So, um. Yeah. Stage lights full glare the whole time, which I love.

Gourley started Marshmallow and Darrin, Steve and I were all lined up on the stairs behind the stage. We finally ran up into our positions and waited for the song to kick in. I didn't even notice MCB wasn't there until Darrin gave his little intro kick-flam thing and we hit the first big E chord! Then MCB came running across the stage with a full face of makeup, threw on his guitar and started playing. Classic!

I unplugged my bass at least twice, maybe three times, during Marshmallow. Just by stepping on it! I finally remembered to wrap it around the strap to keep it in place. Even that didn't help. I was throwing down wrong notes, losing picks, trying not to trip over the coffin, trying not to over-exert myself and use all my energy during the first three songs. All that trying was for naught because that's exactly what happened. Not to mention losing the middle knob from my bass. What a great way to treat an instrument on its maiden voyage. Beat the fuck out of it, douse it in fake blood and scatter its pieces to the wind. Er, the audience.

We plowed into Wienermobile and I was already having issues with the cape. Which I knew was going to happen. That thing is like wearing a wool blanket with a neckstrap.

After Wienermobile was the first "oh shit, what are we going to play next" moment. Unfortunately, not the last either. I knew we were going to forget to play something. And we did.

I also wasn't sure beforehand when to break out the skull and fake blood, so I'm pretty sure it went down during Pizza Party. The blood wasn't very tasty and I'm sure it looked like the dorkiest thing in the world, but it did seem like a good idea at the time. Next time I'll figure it out beforehand and even bring a tarp or something to prevent it from getting all over everybody else's stuff. It's not very rock 'n' roll of me to be concerned with leaving fake blood stains everywhere I go, is it?

We got derailed on Fribble but we pulled it back together. And then we ended the set with a request. No, not "Cold Gin." ... Stromboli Fever? That's an odd one to close with, which is why I approve. We have other, more bombastic number that we prefer to leave the audience with. Shit Down Your Neck is one. Fribble is the other. Something heavy and riffy and with an ending that can be played by hoisting the bass overhead. Stromboli is the anti-closer. Word. Maybe next time we can close with Guacamole Damn It. I don't recall anyone else having issues onstage. I just had my head even further up my ass than usual so I wasn't really taking note of anyone else's shenanigans (or lack thereof).

Not sure of the order but I'm pretty sure we played
MARSHMALLOW
WIENERMOBILE
SALAD BAR MAN
CHICKEN NUGGETS OF SIN
PIZZA PARTY
CEREAL AND BEER
SACRIFICIAL LEG OF LAMB
DEEZ NUTS
HANDS OFF MY OREOS
PIE HAIR PIE
I WANT A BIG MAC
RED POP
SPICY BEEF STICK
FRIBBLE
STROMBOLI FEVER

2003-07-04T10:22:00.000-04:00

KILLER SHOW!!!!
====================
Everlasting Godstopper | Tom Foolery & The Mistakes |Devilcake
Little Brother's
Thursday, July 3rd 2003

I first want to say it's amazing that I'm even posting this since I got to bed around 4 am. I all groggy and shit, but my body is not cooperating with the sleep thing, so I am up and barely functioning.... with that said:

Devilcake rocked the house last night at Little Brothers.

The night started off with me going to get dinner for Me, Maryann, MCB and E... (shit, I forgot her name) at Subways. However I get to the Subways and THEY'RE FUCKING CLOSED!!! WTF!!! So I had to go to Jersey Mike's to get everyone's steak and cheese sandwiches.

Got to the parking lot around 7:30/8-ish. MCB and Todd were already there. Todd showed me the t-shirts that he had made up and they were SWEET!!!! Black with a red Devilcake logo. They look awesome. (You should order one from Ian, you know. They're only $10. check out the killer logo at http://www.twistedzen.com/devilcake/.)

(I could go on about sitting around until 10pm but I won't. Nothing that interesting happened). We watched the downtown fireworks from outside Little Brother's. They were cool, but they shot off all the finale fireworks so low that I we couldn't really see any of them. We heard the finale though. :P

Everlasting Godstopper (no, that's not the jawbreaker from Willie Wonka. It's GOD stopper). They had a nice goth / death metal look about them. I have to admit the sound was good. We hired a girl named Tera to do the sound and she just fucking ROCKS!!! She's got mad mic skills. They brought in a few fans and that is good. They played for about 30 to 45 minutes. Not too bad I have to admit. The drummer had a rack-mount drum kit. He had cymbals all over the place, which was cool. He had a 10" or 12" china splash/crash thing which sounded awesome. I'm not sure where that sound would fit into the Devilcake realm of music, but I think I might have to get me one of those.

The great Tom Foolery and The Mistakes took the stage around 11:30. (I wasn't looking at my watch so I am completely clueless as to what time it really was.) They rocked the house as usual. They gave us multiple props which is totally cool. We're fans of them and they're fans of us. It works out well. They even dedicated a song to Nancy (our operatic screamer and Todd's wife). Nancy loves their version of Cyndi Lauper's 'Time After Time' and they added it to the set list just for her.

We got on stage around 12:30. Tonight we pulled out almost all the stops. We had the coffin and cross (although I have to admit I never saw them in place or lit up... I was too busy putting together the drum kit). We had the smoke machines. Ian had a hat on. He had his wife do a special haircut just for this show... a Mr. T mohawk!!! I hope to goodness that _someone_ got a picture of it. I don't care who, just someone. Ian also wore a big black cape. MCB did some gothy corpse makeup. Todd was dressed as a butchering coroner complete with blood splatters. Me? I just wore black shorts and a black t-shirt. I sit behind the drums and ya can't see me anyway.

Gourley and Todd started off the show with Marshmallow. Just them two on stage which was pretty cool. The rest of the band went on when it was time to rock. And rock we did! The sound (at least from my seat) was great. Hopefully Tera was able to get a good mix fast since we didn't give her a sound check. (oops!)

I can tell you that I had a great time. I didn't get super tired. My equipment didn't give me pains. I stuck a big fuckin' cinder block in front of the double bass pedal. it usually moves on me during the show, but tonight it had now chance at all.

Ian was all over the place which was cool as hell. He was doing some excellent backing vocals (Todd too!). He pulled out all the stops when, during the breakdown of Chicken Nuggets Of Sin, he drank blood from a SKULL!!! It was sweet. I hope Steve's videotape comes out!

Everyone else was rocking as well. Todd's new amp sounded great with the cheez-o-keyz! As far as I could tell, he didn't have any of the cut-off problems which have bothered some of his performances. MCB and Steve were musically playing off each other in a fantastic way.

I think it is safe to say that this show was also the longest ever in Devilcake history. Todd brought in a tape deck (and Tom Foolery brought in a 4-track) which Tera used to record the show. The plan was to play every frickin' song we knew and then some and we were darn close. Below is the list of the songs we played. The order is all kinds of fucked up, but I'm pretty sure I got them all listed.

After the last song, Gourley said his usual thank you's to the other band and to Little Brother's. I got up and was milling around to mention the CDs and t-shirts we had for sale. But before I could do that, Ian got on the mic and congratulated 'the little drummer from Devilcake' (that's me... der!) on getting engaged. I thought was pretty fuckin' cool of him... and embarrassing for me. :P Then I got on the mic and mentioned that we had t-shirts for sale and also CDs for sale... however I was botching up the titles of the regular CD and the box set... after fumbling around on the names for what seemed to be a 1/2 hour, MCB stepped in an told me to sit down!!! ha ha ha!!!

After the show, it felt great to know that I didn't have to rush around and tear down the kit so the next band. I walked around and talked to Kyle from Tom Foolery. He swapped shirts with us which I thought was cool. His band has a show in New York next weekend and he was talking that he might wear the Devilcake shirt for that show. I told that if he did he HAS to get a picture of it so I can say that Devilcake was in New York!

There was one guy in the audience who kept screaming our name out (even during Tom Foolery's set) who said he was from Austin and was trying to put together some music festival. I don't know who he was or how legit he was, but he had his wife/girlfriend buy him a boxset and a t-shirt... and that for now is all that matters. We sold some stuff. Unfortunately, I think that is all we sold. Oh well. It's still money for the band fund.

I finally got the car loaded around 2am. I was hungry so Maryann and I drove through Steak and Shake. It was 2:30am by that point and all the bars had just closed. There was a car with two completely drunk guys in front of us. Hearing them try to place an order was a laugh. "I was want one... no, two cheese burgers with no cheese or onions... no wait, one with cheese and the other with no onions. No wait... one with two cheese and no and onion and... wait.' You can see where this is going. 5 or 10 minutes later the drive-thru dude had to tell the drunk guys to just pull around. The line was SLOW, but there were tons of drunk people ordering tons of food. I got home with my double-bacon cheeseburger, onion rings and vanilla coke around 3 or 3:30. And was probably asleep by 4am. Ugh....

Anyways, here's the killer setlist. Again, the songs are right... but the order of them is nowhere close.
(ed. - According to Todd who taped the show, the set list below is accurate and complete.)

MARSHMALLOW
WEINERMOBILE
PIZZA PARTY
CEREAL & BEER
HANDS OFF MY OREOS
DEEZ NUTS
SALAD BAR MAN
PIE HAIR PIE
BIG MAC
CHICKEN NUGGETS OF SIN
FRANKENSTEIN'S FRENCH FRIES
RED POP
SPICY BEEF STICK
SACRIFICIAL LEG OF LAMB
FRIBBLE
(encore)STROMBOLI FEVER

WE ARE DEVILCAKE!!! GOODNIGHT!!!!

2003-05-01T12:34:00.000-04:00

Giggy Dierrearery Derrierreiary
DEVILCAKE | Tom Foolery & The Mistakes | two other bands
Bernie's
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
This was a stripped-down, pared-down, sectioned-off, cordoned, abbreviated, obliterated reprise of our last Bernie's appearance, in December 2002. Similarly reprised was the concept of the Summer Set from last year. Which in this case entails only the most sprightly and lively numbers from our catalog.

It was strange before it even began, due to the noticable absence of Michael Bill, who was unable to break free from work. It's the first Devilcake show he hasn't played at since the reunion in 2000. So the guitar sound was thinned out a bit. Otherwise it was business as usual. I got there late, blah blah, soundman was running behind, blah blah, we started late blah blah and played for half an hour or so.

And the main lights were off when we played - and we rocked the tits off the place. See, I told ya. Give us some darkness to play in, and we'll turn this sombitch out.

I thought Todd was going to have an episode when one of the strap buttons on the Keyz O Death broke off completely. But what seemed like a real pisser when it happened turned into a really cool thing that kind of set the tone for the rest of the set. And indeed our approach to the set itself. Which was to duct-tape the fuck out of the Keyz O. Rather than not playing the Keyz, Todd was able to tape the sombitch up, and actually improve upon it by doing so. It's wounded, it's vilified, it's had its ass kicked, and now it can rise like a Phoenix. To the extent that the Keyz O were louder in the final mix than the bass. My fucking bass amp was the weak link last night.

We had a partial-band practice/cookout last week and it was determined that the stupidest song we could possibly open with is Red Pop. The idea being that the idiotic, three-chord song would be the worst choice to start with because it is in no way indicative of the band's sound or interests or tastes or anything really. It's just this song - half a song, really - that we wrote in 1992 that continues to haunt us.

So it was good to have another "first" onstage last night, it's been a while.

Red Pop to open with. Bah. It was hysterical and awesome and I don't think anyone apart from Darrin and maybe Steve saw it coming. But once they heard the strained bass notes at the wrong tempo, they knew ... it was on... OOF!

Red Pop into Salad Bar Man... ehhhh.. Salad Bar Man was maybe not the perfect choice for the second song. We should've splatted into Flesh Feast there, to keep the momentum up. Oh well. It's okay to get our glam rock on too, I suppose.

Steve stepped up his guitar game to fill in the vacant frequencies and extra bit of stage space left by MCB's absence with verve. Steve is the quiet, cool, level headed, subdued dominator onstage, as he skilfully and stealthily snuck into "Hands Off My Oreos." Oh! My skull!

We could've just as easily done the other 1-2 punch, Pie Hair Pie into I Want A Big Mac. But instead we went with Marshmallow/Wienermobile.

I didn't spend too much extra time hovering around the mic, so I must've been more relaxed than the last show. The whole set was just like when we played there in December, it was short, abrupt, slappy and to the point. I thought the set ended nicely after Wienermobile, but the peeps demanded one more song. In return, I demanded that they name the song they wanted us to play. They demanded Sacrificial Leg Of Lamb. And it was served - sacrificially.

In that situation, I want to try to reason with people. I want to say - "look, Sacrficial Leg Of Lamb is a slow, grinding, epic metal monster masterpiece. You don't really want that right now, at the end of the set, hovering over you for five minutes like a storm cloud. Think about what you're asking for. Search your hearts, I think you know you really would rather hear Flesh Feast."

But it seemed like it would be quicker to just play Sacrificial. So we did. More or less. I don't usually sing backups on Sac-Leg either, but what the hell. Sometimes my voice surprises me coming through the PA. In my mind I have a low voice, something like Billy Idol. But when it comes blasting out of the speakers it's all high and crackly and demented.

I probably always say this in gig diereearrrys too, but I would always prefer to leave the audience wanting more Devilcake than to overstay our welcome. I know what it's like to have a short attention span, and I hate it too when boring-ass bands get up and play forever. I also know that, no matter what, we're always going to be that boring-ass band to somebody else - so I want to minimize their suffering. I'd rather have our set be like a quick chat in passing than an hour-long lecture. And we definitely had that last night.

Leave the audience yelling for more, not yelling at you and flipping you off and telling you you suck!

Red Pop
Salad Bar Man
Hands Off My Oreos
Cereal And Beer
Marshmallow
Wienermobile
Sacrificial Leg Of Lamb

2003-05-01T00:56:00.000-04:00

DEVILCAKE | TOM FOOLERY AND THE MISTAKES | MARVIN THE ROBOT | SUBURBAN FABULOUS
Wednesday April 30th, 2003
Bernie's Bagels and Distillery

Kid Chill, KeyZ O playah checking in.

Wow. There's something about rocking out in a basement that should be condemned that is beyond words.

other than, Word.

We were Devilcake Minus Two tonight (MCB had to work and Nancy stayed home). We decided early on that we were going first and secured our spot by setting up on stage. As I was fiddling with the strap, the Keys O Death slipped free and plummeted to the stage. The strap bolt and a good chunk of the case at the end cracked and that was the end of the strap.

Luckily Darrin had some duck tape in his bass drum (don't ask) and in a Punk Rock meets Dusenbury-inspired moment, the keys were again ready to rock.

but enough about me.

The sound man apparently had issues..of the psychological kind which culminated in him asking us to check a mic that he had not yet provided. No problem. Two vocal mics is all Devilcake really needs. We (Ian, Steve, and I) each rocked through our respective amps.

Ian led the attack with Red Pop...an XTC inspired ditty that we hadn't rocked on stage since Carter carried his own clubs.

Then came Salad Bar man...and the sweat onslaught had begun.
Ian and I shared the second mic while Gourley worked the other one like a college kid at a high school prom.

The set as I remember went a little like this:

RED POP
SALAD BAR MAN
HANDS OFF MY OREOS
CEREAL AND BEER
MARSHMALLOW
WEINERMOBILE
(shouts for more)
SACRIFICIAL LEG OF LAMB

I'm sure I'm missing one.
Afterwards we gathered our shit up and got the hell out.

The vibe was decidedly better this time 'round at Bernie's.
The whole vibe of the set was just balls to the wall-sweat overload-fuck you we're rocking here, but thanks for letting us...kind of thing.

It was a good show...and the keys'O actually sounded better tonight than they have in the past year. Partly because I was rocking straight out of the amp...but I think the duck tape helped a little.

Hell, everything sounded good tonight.

I was just jazzed that the show went so well.

If you're keeping score, the next confirmed Devilcake Show is July 3rd at Little Brothers.

2003-04-25T10:19:00.000-04:00

DEVILCAKE | BLOODCLOT | DD & THE TTs
Thursday, April 17, 2003
High Five

The first gig of the 2K3 and what's become something like an annual appearance at High Five for us. Seems like we play there once a year, usually during the summer. And that suits me just fine.

On the evening of show I arrived late (as usual) but not as late as some were predicting. I've found that hanging around at High Five is something I really need to be in the mood for and I definitely wasn't in the mood for any shenanigans on this particular rock 'n' roll Thursday night. So I got there as late as I possibly could. Which worked very well for me because everyone else in the band was already set up and ready to rock. All I had to do was plug in my amp (easier said than done on the dark stage when all of the electrical outlets were already claimed by bigger amps), plug in my bass (easier said than done when the soundman is crawling all over my paltry "rig" and plugging in the DI box) and tune up (which was easy because I used MCB's tuner pedal.).

My arms will still wobbly and my head was slightly spinny from carrying in that ungodly heavy bass amp several blocks up 5th Ave, and I never really regained my bearings once my shit was set up and we were on the tractor beam to showtime. Mentally, I was extremely hyper but I just couldn't seem to focus on anything.

Playing fretless bass onstage is almost like work because I have to look down at the neck all night. It's not like a regular fretted bass and my aim is impaired by the stage lights and an overall lack of technique (which is required of any Devilcake bassist). And anything resembling work onstage with Devilcake is not cool. Not for me anyway.

So even before we played a note I was already wobbly, unfocused, tired/wired and extra shaky from being such a wimp. Showtime was called and we made our way to the stage.

And again, I know I say it in every gig diary because I either forget at the time or it just doesn't seem important, but for me, rocking out with all the stage lights on is a losing proposition. Note to self: see previous notes to self about onstage lighting.

So um, all the lights were on and they stayed on the whole time we played. I feel really self-conscious when there's no darkness to disappear into between songs. I feel like a science project on the stage, like everyone is looking at us through a microscope. Feeling self-conscious onstage usually translates to me spending waaaaay too much time at the microphone between songs. I try to make myself loosen up by making a bunch of typically useless and retarded observations into the mic - and it usually just makes me feel more awkward and distanced from rocking out. But at the time it feels utterly necessary. I see holes in the performance and I want to fill them. All at once. It's futile and stupid but that's where my head was on this particular rock 'n' roll Thursday night.

We started with Marshmallow in the full glare of the lights. Then I think we did Wienermobile. The bass chords on the chorus are hard enough to play on a regular fretted bass, but on the fretless it's always a mess. And it wasn't rocking me to play, despite my best efforts. I was making the motions but I wasn't feeling them.

We've played the exact same set before, to much smaller audiences and I've felt every note of it. And that's nice when it can happen but that wasn't the case for me at this show.

Gourley's vocals came off the track a few times but nobody else lost their place. He seemed to be struggling too, I don't know.

There were several lulls between songs. I think it's important to not be tied down to a dogmatic set list because you can't react to the moment. You're looking down and literally playing to the piece of paper. You're mentally checking off the songs and you're thinking about what comes next. Instead of existing in the moment and playing the piss out of the song you're playing.

However, the downside to having no set list is when no one can think of what song to play next. You wind up standing there throwing titles around and it feels unprofessional. So I guess there is a balance to be struck.

We played Pizza Party at some point and Sacrificial Leg Of Lamb, Deez Nuts, um...

Pizza Party was tough because even though all of the notes were there and we played it exactly as it was written, it still felt hollow and weird to me. I can usually dredge up a scream at the end of the song from the depths of my soul but I wasn't feeling it that night. I was considering not screaming at all. That would've been a better course of action.

We played Pie, Hair Pie and I Want A Big Mac. And Fribble at the end.

I was already shaky and out of it before we began, so by the end of the set I was having an out of body experience. I gathered my gear as quickly as possible and got it out the back door.

It was good to comiserate with Kyle Foolery and the others out back afterwards. Even a little bit of support on an evening such as this is extremely rewarding. It doesn't take much. But it's always good to know when peeps who aren't directly related to the band in some way actually get it. And I'm not just talking about enjoying the spectacle, I'm talking about really understanding what Devilcake is.

So I wouldn't say it was a bad show by any stretch. I still think that Devilcake at its worst is more entertaining than the majority of the bands we've played with. No one else in the band complained (apart from Todd sabotaging his keyboard by accidentally unplugging it) and we just kinda did our thing and left. I would've preferred to play a shorter set. I didn't have any "oh hell yeah" moments all night either.

I think I usually feel this way when we play at High Five. Sometimes, in the glare of all those damn lights, it feels to me like we're just pushing a lot of hot air. And that people aren't surprised by us or what we do, and they're not necessarily interested either. And that's fine actually, but at least turn off the fucking lights so I can create the mental illusion of there being a huge audience that's really into it out there. Come on.

2003-04-24T14:49:00.000-04:00

DEVILCAKE + DICK DELICIOUS AND THE TASTY TESTICLES + BLOODCLOT
High Five
Thrusday April 17th, 2003

By: Daiwin da Dwummer

We had a gig last Thursday at High Five. We rolled into the joint around 8pm. A few members of the other bands (Dick Delicious And The Tasty Testicles and Blood Clot) were already there. When I asked about the order, they asked if we would mind going on last. I said, "Well, we hadn't planned on that. We were told we would be on first." I knew I had to be at work the next morning, so the earlier the better for me. Getting home at 2 a.m. was not going to make the next day much fun. But, as it went, we did get to go on first at about 10:30pm. It appeared that Blood Clot brought with them a following, so there were actually a few patrons there, somewhere in the area of 20 or 30 people, which, for Devilcake, is a large gathering.

We did a sound check around 10pm or so. Guacamole Dammit, of course. I think this is the first time I ever had the sound man actually put anything into the monitor. I usually just shrug off the whole 'Do you have enough bass in the monitor' deal, but I decided that maybe hearing tonight would be valuable. Anyway, Guacmole Dammit didn't sound too bad for a bunch of guys who hadn't hardly played together for 5 months. The last time we have played was Dec 30th at Bernie's. I goofed up the ending, forgetting that we repeat it. I looked over at MCB and he was just laughing at me. And who could blame him. The look I get on my face when I end a song early is much to laugh at.

We got back onstage around 10:30pm and started off with Marshmallow as usual. We did this one old-school because Nancy wasn't there. The guitars were blaring, the bass was boomin', the keyz were screaming and Gourley was growling. It was good stuff. After that we went into Weinermobile. This song always makes my arms ache. I think alot of the songs were a bit slower tonight for that simple reason. I was out of practice. Funny thing is, I usually play the songs too fast so they were probably at the speed they were supposed to be.

Since there wasn't a setlist, I am going to guess at the rest set list. I think we did: Hands Off My Oreos, Pizza Party, Pie Hair Pie, I Want A Big Mac, Sacificial Leg Of Lamb, Cereal And Beer, Deez Nuts (not sure on this one), Fribble. I swear we played more than this. Someone in the crowd yelled out a song and Ian said 'Really?', shrugged, and then said 'Okay.' I can't remember what song it was though. I'm pretty sure I'm missing a song or two. The set seemed longer than normal.

I remember Ian starting Pizza Party and me doing the hi hat count in. I was, at that moment, in a goofy mood so I was playing the disco hi hat. I looked up and there was Ian shaking his head. Silly me thought he was giving me the 'You big goof-ball' head shake. However, in my oblivion, I failed to realize that Steve was trying to tune his guitar and Todd was working with his rig. So I jump into it and those two were kind-of 'Oh fuck'. But they jumped in rather quickly and we didn't miss so much as a beat.

Overall, I think the gig went pretty good considering we hadn't really practiced at all. I was goofing up songs here and there. Each time MCB would laugh. And of course, I would laugh too 'cause, in the end, we're all up there to have a good time. Might as well laugh along. The look a drummer gets on his face when he drops a stick is priceless. Bwa-ha!

After I dragged all 500 pounds of equiptment out to the car, we all ended up chatting for quite a while. It was kinda nice, really. Everybody just talking about whatever. The ever-supportive and hard-core fan Kyle from Tom Foolery came out and we chatted with him. After our show, he bolted. Now that's a fan, I tell you. About 11:30 or midnight or so, me and the woman and jumped into the car and took off. We hit White Castles on the way home for a midnight snack and all was good.

2002-12-31T10:23:00.000-05:00

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

2002-12-30T16:18:00.000-05:00

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)

2002-08-09T19:30:00.000-04:00

HIGHMORE'S BODY + TOM FOOLERY & THE MISTAKES + DEVILCAKE
Little Brothers
Wednesday August 7, 2002

It was an intimate little gathering of diehard dirtheads for our little Wednesday show. It was good to see the Foolery fools and the Highmore fools again. Highmore's went first for whatever reason. Their curious blend of ROCK and flat-out pornographic lyrics never fails to crack me up. I might be the only one but I think they're fucking hilarious. The singer is hysterical and his bass playing is righteous as well. His bass effects will cause me to buy some of my own, I'm afraid. Not forgetting Highmore's guitarist, who's got all the right fretboard moves. I don't know how to explain it, his shit is just there where it needs to be. All his little solos and shit, he's kinda like The Edge reborn in The Melvins. And the drummer from Highmore's is a fucking monster, I hope they realize what an asset he is to their band!

I love playing with Highmore's Body, those guys are a kick-ass band and they're cool to us too. Next on the bill was Tom Foolery & The Mistakes. The last time we saw them they were missing the bass player and half of a drum kit - both of which were present this time! Their songs crack me the fuck up too, and in fact they're very similar to Highmore's but at the same time they couldn't be more unalike. I mean, they're both trios and both of the singers wear glasses and they both kind of mine that lonely/loser (you know what I mean) vein in their lyrics and presentation. But that's where the similarites end I think. They did play the one about the PM Dawn dream. And the bass player appeared to be playing many many notes but I couldn't make out any of them due to everything else being louder in the mix. They even had some females dancing in front of the stage when they played! I wonder what that's like!

I knew I was forgetting something when Devilcake took the stage, and it was to ask Tera The Sound-person to please turn off the stage lights while we play! For if we've learned nothing from our tenure at Midgard, we should know now that rocking out with the lights on is an impossibility. And I felt it the entire time we played, it just seemed like we/I weren't hitting the marks like we did the last time we played at Little Bros.

We played the summer set but opened with Marshmallow and we threw in I Can't Believe It's Not Satan somewhere just because it's the name of the CD!

We didn't start playing until around midnight and I think my body fell asleep sometime around 10:30 or so. I was so totally out of it for the entire evening.

The summer set seemed to lack the impact of the last time we played it, but oh well. Did we practice it too much? Not enough? Whatever it was, I didn't feel like we were really rocking people. Possibly because with all that damn light I could actually see all of the audience! And that's bad. I need to step back and focus on playing the right notes and shit. I talked too much between songs too. If anyone sees me stepping up to the mic between songs in the future, please remind me that I shouldn't! I always feel like an asshole later.

The sound was good, I could hear everything pretty much. I should've had my amp louder though, I could barely hear it. But I could hear Nancy and Todd's keys and Gourley just fine. So that's cool.

The pisser is that after I finished packing up after our set, I realized I broke my glasses! I had put them on my amp before we started playing and then I totally forgot about them. I might've stepped on them or dropped something on them. Whatever, they were all mangled when I found them. And it made me want to cry for some reason. Probably the fatigue. I'm not a cry-er but I couldn't see and I thought I was going to die. So um.

I'm glad Highmore's and Tom Foolery got to stick around for our set - most of them anyway! I hope that they had as much fun as we did.

2002-07-13T09:32:00.000-04:00

For those of you in-tie-rested in the summer setlist we used at midgard, here it 'tis:
Flesh Feast
Cereal And Beer
Wienermobile
Pizza Party
Hands Off My Oreos
Pie Hair Pie
I Want A Big Mac
Deez Nuts
Red Pop
Salad Bar Man
*and finally, returning to the regular set list from the depths of 'sound check' status*
Guacamole Dammit

I had an okay time... as Ian said my drums were falling apart and pissing me off in general. Here's what I had to say the day after in my live journal.
*start quote*
Devilcake played at Midgard last night, and it was total madness... sometimes good madness... sometimes bad madness. During the set up, nothing was unusual. I was back in the corner, Todd to my left, MCB to my front right, Ian... pacing as usual and not really having a set 'spot', Nancy and Steve in front of Todd, and Gourley... I'm not sure where he was... probably putting on his horns. Gourley said 'Kill The Lights' and we were off to the instrumental beginning of 'Flesh Feast'. That song went fine. We were going all out, every one of us. The set list was designed as such, having none of the slower songs that usually are sprinkled throughout the set. This was going to be a straight ahead blitz. "Cereal And Beer" was next. It was during this song that I noticed that the bass drum was moving. Son of a... At the conclusion of the song I quickly got on the floor to fix it, however, my drumset was having none of that. For some reason, the foot pedal just wasn't willing to go on the bass drum. Todd, sensing the momentum was slowing started a fine instrumental using some of his new toys. Thanks Todd for filling in for me!!! And thanks to Ian for helping me as well, lending a fellow-drummer hand when I needed it!!! Finally the pedal was on. I laid into the china cymbal 3 times and off we went on the 'Wienermobile'. That song was FLYING fast! The kids were starting to get into it at this point. The rest of the set was a blur for me since my equipment was constantly giving me issues. If the bass drum wasn't moving, the high hat was falling apart or the snare drum was threatening to fall of the stand. But we all kept jamming and the kids kept moshing. It retrospect, it was a very good gig. Everyone else seemed to be in the groove... even me at times. Ian was all over the place (at least he was when I was looking up). I had a small train wreck on the last song, Guacamole Dammit (!) and I took Todd with me, but Ian pulled us back in for the final note. It was great way to end our run at Midgard Comics. At the end of the evening I gave away a bunch of stickers and the crowd was grabbing them up.
*end quote*

Now bugger off!

2002-07-07T14:33:00.000-04:00

here's Nancy's account of the Polaris show, which I just ganked from her Live Journal. http://www.livejournal.com/users/voxaria/

Polaris: The Musical
It rained.

But before that, everything about it was great- we were waved in at the gate and parked right next to the stage. The stage itself was huge- it was a football field compared to what we’re used to. We had three people helping us set up. The helpful and competent Shannon brought us a cooler of pop, water, and Coronas, with the promise of pizza on the way.

As Poison’s sound check bumped along nearby, we spent nearly an hour setting up, checking levels, etc. It was laid-back but very professional (and very easy to get used to). Shannon graciously positioned Todd’s camcorder in front of the sound booth to capture everything for posterity. We were told we’d be patched in to a radio station, and there were rumblings of possible backstage passes. The banner was duct-taped to the front of the stage within an inch of its life. I took a lot of pictures. All was well.

Finally it was time for our sound check. We ran through “Guacamole Dammit” a time and a half, then got ready to officially start the set. The skies were graying, but we remained hopeful.

We were into the fourth song when our main contact dude (Doug, of the chaw-filled lower lip) began heaving large rolls of plastic into position around the stage. The wind had been steadily picking up, and visions of the opening scenes of “Still Crazy” were dancing in my head. He told me to be ready to shut it all down as soon as he gave the signal.

At 5:15, barely into the opening bars of “I Want a Big Mac,” we had to pull the plug. With the tarps whipping in the wind, lightning flashing all around, and rain pelting us, we finally got everything shrouded and headed for a nearby structure to wait and see.

The rain stopped soon and we watched as steam rose from the pavement, wondering if we’d get to go back on. Some amazingly good (unfortunately anonymous) pizza appeared and was summarily devoured. Strains of classic rock wafted over from the VIP party right next to us, followed by the opening numbers of Faster Pussycat’s set which began as scheduled on the main stage.

Doug returned from an inspection of the stage to inform us that rain had gotten the connectors and various other electrical pieces and parts too wet to power up. Disappointed as we were, not playing was preferable to almost certain death by electrocution. The load-out took longer than the “set” we’d been able to play.

Doug was very apologetic. In a way, the whole incident probably did more toward helping seal the deal for booking us at Shocktoberfest than if we’d played the full evening (so mark your calendars now). Doug carried on the tradition of announcing his fear for his mortal soul after booking and mixing us. Hell yeah!!

We passed out some CD’s to the crew, who really seemed to dig us. After some entertaining moments watching the freak show that was the Polaris hair-metal-fan crowd, it was time to go. Most of us didn’t feel like hanging around to hear songs that we could have covered better in Darrin’s basement. And the stoned pre-teen asking for body autographs just added to surrealism of the entire experience (maybe she wasn’t, but she sure looked it- both stoned and pre-teen).

It wasn’t even 7:30. The let-down was complete. As we exited the parking lot, the bulk of the crowd was just arriving to see Bret and company crank out their (insert your own adjective here) “product”.

We watched the video at Darrin’s and it was pretty wild to see how fast the sky darkened in the short time the camera was running. It was short but highly entertaining, if only for Ian’s drum-riser jumps and hellraising vocal stylings. Gourley was as into it as ever, which is saying something since hardly anyone had made their way back to our neck of the woods yet.

The concession stand and Polaris staff were privileged to hear the following:
• Guacamole Dammit
• Guacamole Dammit (sound check mini-mix)
• Weinermobile
• Sacrificial Leg of Lamb
• Pie Hair Pie
• I Want a Big Mac (storm edit)

We’ll be back.

2002-07-07T14:09:00.000-04:00

Who even pays attention to this shit anymore? Or did we ever?!?!?! I wonder.

Saturday 6 July 2002
Midgard Comics
DEVILCAKE and somebody will have to tell me the names of the other bands because I never knew

The last two scheduled appearances at Midgard were summarily blown off by us due to a lack of paying attendees. And that's not to imply that I think we're rockstars ever since we played Polaris the other week on the sidestage before Poison. Far from it.

It's just that - if there's no audience then there's no point. And we all have too much going on to squander an evening at an empty comic store if ya know what I mean.

We rehearsed a special Summer Set last Wednesday, comprised of all fast, uptempo songs. Nothing too heavy, nothing too ghouly, just the fast shit. As in, let's play fast and then go eat. Although there are times when it's nice to lay down a solid doom groove, this wasn't meant to be one of them.

And I'm so glad we did that. Afterwards everyone said "wow, what a great set that was." Hmmm.

It was old school. Why in my day we had thirteen people onstage and we always played like that! It was a shambolic, fast mess and that's how we liked it!

Darrin broke his drums several times. First the bass drum kept slipping away. Then the pedal came off from the drum. And then what? It seemed like a lot more at the time.

Todd's finding his groove, equipment-wise. At least until the next gig! But he was happy and that's all that matters. Because he's the only one who ever knows with that stuff.

The boys in the audience amused themselves with a thoroughly un-ironic mosh pit while the girls in the audience (okay, Rachel) shouted the lyrics and had a great time. Even if the audience consists of adolescent boys running at each other and one female who's engaged to the guitar player that's still a damn sight better than playing for nobody. Or not playing at all. And it does make one hell of a difference to see one person in front of the stage having as much fun as I do!

There was one point where I went to the back of the stage to rock by Darrin and Todd. When I turned around I saw Steve and MCB strumming each others' guitars a la Cinderella. HELL YEAH. Hell yeah.

Nancy still managed to find bits and pieces to add even though we weren't doing anything dramatic or operatic in the slightest! And that rules because it would be very easy for her to say "we're not playing Marshmallow therefore I'm going to stay home tonight fuckaaaaaaahhhhhs." It is a complete waste to have a voice as great as hers yelling "guacamole damn it leave it alone"! But like I said I prefer that to the alternative.

Steve The Former Video Guy (it's been a long time since I did a Gig Diary!) is a quiet but solid presence onstage. He and MCB make a great guitar team, they're both from the same planet on all of that shit.

And Gourley. That dude never stops!

Space on the stage goes quickly when you have seven people in the band. It's sometimes hard to rock like a boulder without kicking people, unplugging their guitars, blowing sweat on them, headbutting them, stabbing them in the face with the headstock of my bass, elbowing them in the neck etc. It's hard but not impossible.

I always forget to drink water before we play at Midgard and I wind up drinking water onstage, which causes my old man belly to seize up like I'm going to puke. I'm not a casual vomitter, so that wouldn't be good. And I forgot a towel and a fresh t-shirt for afterwards. Basically I was soaked with sweat. And blood from my damn right index finger being the wrong shape for the overly-aggressive style of bass-slaying I fall into.

It sounds like Keith at Midgard is getting pretty stressed out about the whole deal with having bands there, so that'll probably be our last time playing there. Now we can concentrate on getting the box set finished and figuring out what we're going to do for the release party!

Who can write in the setlist here?

2002-06-02T14:29:00.000-04:00

This is Darrin ... Ian is hard at work on the stuff for the new album, so I am substituting in.

Sunday 14 April 2002
Jag's (Dayton, OH!!! Woo Hoo!!!)
DEVILCAKE - BEAUTIFUL CHAOS

We got this gig because of Tom Foolery and The Mistakes couldn't make the show. We are grateful to them for getting us out of Columbus.

We played first. The only people in the audience were the guys from Beautiful Chaos and a few of their friends. I think it was no more than 10 people. This was the introduction of Todd 'The Sound Effects Man' Skaggs. Todd had a laptop wired up to an amp and was playing little snippets of this and that here and there. We were anticipating using BC's mics, however, they only brought one, so unfortunately Nancy sat out for this one. We pretty much got up there, played our shit and got off the stage. I wasn't feeling all too well, so I don't remember much other than it wasn't a horrible show.

Gourley and I stayed and watched a little bit of Beautiful Chaos before grabbing a fistful of dollars and bolting out there door. For there not being hardly anyone at this show, it still paid much more than either Mike or I imagined. We figured on $5 dollars. We got a little bit more than that. Just a little bit though. Still, cash is cash and the band can use it later for some of the new props.

We played (using the set lists intended for the Midgard show):
MARSHMALLOW
WIENERMOBILE
SACRIFICIAL LEG OF LAMB
HANDS OFF MY OREOS
PIZZA PARTY
CEREAL & BEER
DEEZ NUTS
SALAD BAR MAN
I CANT BELIEVE ITS NOT SATAN
FRIBBLE

2002-06-02T13:55:00.000-04:00

This is Darrin ... Ian is hard at work on the stuff for the new album, so I am substituting in.

Saturday 6 April 2002
Midgard Comics
TOM FOOLERY AND THE MISTAKES - DEVILCAKE - CASK - CC MANDED - and maybe a couple of others that I forgot to write down

That's right folks we played SECOND! If you've ever seen us, then you know that we usually are on first.

This show was the debut of MCBs Flying V Jackson _AND_ Ian's Stick. I on the other hand lended to the chaos by forgetting to bring in the set list from the car. I was having a tough time getting the drumset together and totally. It wasn't until I was asking myself, "What comes after Wienermobile?" that I, and the rest of the band, realized my mistake. So we all shrugged our shoulders and I called out what I thought was right. In all honestly, I thought it made the show a little more enjoyable, just because.

I think this is the most fun I've had playing with Devilcake. I wasn't really nervous, I wasn't pissed off at being blown away by feedback, I didn't play all the songs 500 miles per hours. I even looked up quite a few times. I had fun. Occasionally my arms started aching (a sign of not hardly practicing at all in the past 6 months) and for the last 3 songs I felt like I was dragging a little bit, but overall, I was just happy. The people at Midgard were actually receptive this time, clapping and cheering and shit. I think that this is because we were on a better bill than last time. I think the last Midgard show we did was mostly punk/'Let's Get High' bands. This was supposedly a more "metal/goth" oriented bill.

The first act up was Tom Foolery & The Mistakes. One of the guys in the band literally made a mistake... the bassist just didn't show up. So it was just the acoustic guitarist and a drummer with the weirdest setup I think I have ever seen. Facing the kit from the crowd, from right to left, he had a snare, a high tom, a high hat with tambouring attached, the floor tom and a crash cymbal. My hat is off to them for sucking it up and playing anyways... and doing quite well. For supposedly being a goth bill, I liken Tom Foolery to Elvis Costello meets Weezer. It was rather enjoyable. They had a song about indigestion and another ballady song where he mentioned Winger. Again, it was entertaining in a good way. Hopefully we can get on a bill with them sometime.

The band that followed us was Cask. Heavy Metal, pure and simple. I liken them to Slayer (who they list as one of their influences). They weren't too bad. I didn't stay to hear the rest of the set. Thanks to the dude from CC Manded for stopping and talking to us. Give us a shout later, man. It would be cool to be on a bill with either of those two as well.

I think the order was as follows:
Marshmallow
Wienermobile
Sacrificial Leg Of Lamb
Hands Of My Oreos
Cereal And Beer
Pizza Party
Deez Nuts
Red Pop
I Can't Believe It's Not Satan
Fribble

2002-03-24T13:42:00.000-05:00

Monday 18 March 2002
Little Bros
DEVILCAKE | MRS CHILDREN
lineup: Mike Gourley, Mike Chuck Bill, Ian Stewart, Todd Skaggs, Darrin Ailes, Nancy Roberts

It wasn't our fault.

We played:

MARSHMALLOW
WIENERMOBILE
SACRIFICIAL LEG OF LAMB
I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT SATAN
SOFT BATCH MAMA
PIZZA PARTY
CEREAL AND BEER
HANDS OFF MY OREOS
DEEZ NUTS
FRIBBLE
SHIT DOWN YOUR NECK

2002-02-10T11:59:00.000-05:00

Friday 8 February 2002
Midgard Comics
DEVILCAKE | NAUGHTY NEIGHBORS | ELYSIUM | APOSTASY
lineup: Mike Gourley, Mike Chuck Bill, Ian Stewart, Todd Skaggs, Darrin Ailes, Nancy Roberts

Friday. They said DEVILCAKE on the radio during the event listings in the afternoon. Which made me want to run around the whole floor with my hands in the air. Which would be totally out of character for me at work. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. My work image has almost nothing to do with me personally. I've just finally figured out that if you wear glasses and you're quiet and never talk to anybody, people naturally assume you're smarter than them. Beyond that it's just no fun being a dork when the average age of most of your coworkers is older than your parents. Anyway.

So the event listing went like this: "and tonight at Midgard Comics - you know that's a very young crowd there, mostly catering to the 18-and-unders. Tonight, Naughty Neighbors, Devilcake, Elysium, Apostasy."

And he mispronounced the last two to a hilarious degree. Bah ha ha ha ha ha. But yeah, he said Devilcake on the radio.

I got to Midgard embarassingly early. Or at least I thought it was embarassing. I was fighting Friday evening rush hour traffic to get there, fer feck's sake. And I could see the DC posse from Cleveland Ave. We're so numerous.

Todd had blue spiky hair (temporarily of course) and Nancy was dressed like a goth maiden or something, I don't know. Darrin and Mike Bill both wore their ghouliest jeans and black t-shirts. Props to Darrin for representing with his King Crimson shirt! Nice one. In the sensory overload that was our first gig in 6.5 months, I forgot to say HEY DARRIN, NICE CHOICE OF T-SHIRTS.

Then Gourley rolled up with Brian The Photographer and .... drumroll please.... Mr Gabe ! I said "holy shit, back from the dead" when I shook his hand. Gabe used to play guitar in the original Devilcake and it was actually his idea to name the band Devilcake. He was a kick-ass metal guitarist, very very good at playing the coolest guitar solos. He also always picked up on my stupid riffs very quickly. When everybody else would still be struggling, he'd get it immediately. He was so talented it kind of made me jealous, or at least it made me want to compete with him! Fortunately for the world I was on drums while he was on guitar and it never panned out. Which is good because he would've destroyed me.

I finished shaking Gabe's hand and he said quietly "I just got out of prison today."
And I'm supposed to respond to this how? So I said "holy shit."

"Yeah, I just got out of prison. I was hooked on heroin for a couple of years. It was terrible. But I learned a lot in prison. I'm going to be more proactive now."

So I said "holy shit."

Then he talked about how he missed playing music and how great heavy metal was and Celtic Frost and Godflesh and the Melvins ruled. Wow.

I knew Gabe had problems with the law over the years. Hell, even ten years ago he was a loose cannon. The worst part about that for me was that he was so good to play music with that it was really hard to just dismiss him as being a criminal or a drug addict or whatever the deal was at the time.

Anyway, it was very good to see Gabe but in a way it made me more nervous too. What if he didn't like Devilcake?

He showed me his tattoos - a huge Celtic Frost one on one bicep (with the heptagram logo from the Morbid Tales album cover) and a big Motorhead head think on the other one.

It was determined fairly quickly that we were going on first, so we took all of our shit in and set up at a sickeningly comfortable pace. It was Mike Bill's first gig with his new Jackson Randy Rhoads and I was excited for him. It sounded kick-ass at practice on Wednesday. And it looked amazing. How metal we suddenly became.

We set up and kind of lingered nervously for a while. They opened the door and we talked to the soundman/booking guy while the place filled up slowly with youths. The soundman told us about this band that played there that came out with a cello and how all the musicians play like 12 different instruments and he thinks most of them went to Berklee and they're all obsessed with horror/b-movies. I said "okay, we quit, it's already been done."

Todd started the keyboards for "Marshmallow." Then the house lights went down. Gourley came in whenever he felt. "eat them from a bag." Okay. Long pause. "Eat them from a can." Whatever. I give up on counting or staying on time. It's going to be that kind of show.

Gourley had a new look going, this was kind of a Satanic Mafia Priest vibe. I like it. I can't wait to see the pictures.

The new version of "Marshmallow" is just keyboards and vocals - with Nancy getting her opera on at various parts - until the second verse, when the whole band kicks in.

And when we did finally kick in I don't think we've ever sounded so Marilyn Manson. Not that that's a bad thing in itself but never have we as a band ever said "okay, let's make this sound like fucking Marilyn Manson." It just came out that way.

It was patently obvious from even before we started playing that audience, though numerous, was too high on puberty to understand what was happening on the stage. I'm working on a theory about the generation gap between Us (gen x, the late 20s/early 30s fucks) and Them (20 and under). The punch line of the theory is that their generation has grown up on things We have embraced ironically. So that they can wear Weezer t-shirts with logos based on Judas Priest logos with a straight face and not even think it's funny on any level. They just like Powerpuff Girls because it's everywhere, not because it's a send-up of every cartoon cliche We grew up seeing. Irony is completely lost on them. That's the theory anyway.

But I also think that the median age of this audience prevented it from really communicating anything collectively.

When we play at High Five and people don't like us, they give us the finger (or two), they yell FUCK YOU, GET OFF THE STAGE and basically let us know we're not wanted. When they like us, they'll stand there and yell and clap and yell song titles between songs and that's what I'm talking about. Collectively, people are in tune with their emotions and they can give a band instant feedback. Which, even when it's bad, is still vital.

So imagine rocking your BRAINS out to a wall, ten kids deep, of people just standing there with their arms folded. Or paired off talking to each other. It was tough.

I usually get confidence when the whole band kicks in. The volume is soothing and my bass parts just breeze past and if I'm lucky I can get some good rock poses in. Last night it was like talking into a phone and not knowing if anybody was on the other end. I mean, you know they're there, right? But they're not saying or doing anything.

Which is fine. Just stand there and clap if you're going to be all pubescent about it. Just stand back when the shit hits the fan.

None of Gourley's schtick was working. These kids had no clue. He was working it like a champ and there just wasn't anybody home on the other end. Like Andy Partridge said after XTC played in Rio: "It was like asking your mother to listen to Captain Beefheart when she's trying to do the vacuuming." It's like talking philosophy to a baby. They don't dislike you exactly, they just don't understand a fucking thing you're saying.

Right. So "Marshmallow" yielded to a bruising "Wienermobile." Not just the tempo, but for me the actual playing of the song was becoming painful. The reason is simple: I was tense. I was squeezing the piss out of the neck and my picking was sloppy and wasteful. I dropped a few picks, which is just dumb. I drank too much water between songs and I thought I was going to yak a couple of times. Maybe I should've.

After "Wienermobile" was the threatened ode to The Police in the form of the intro to "Walking On The Moon". Again, silence from the audience. Don't these kids ever watch TV? Surely they've seen the SUV commercials with that song on them?!?!?

That was slam-dunked into "Pie, Hair Pie" which was so old-school it made me cry. And just like you shouldn't have chocolate without peanut butter, neither should you have "Pie, Hair Pie" without "I Want A Big Mac." Wow. It was, wow.

The audience was just a wet blanket by this point. We were kicking their asses and they were just standing there. What did they want? If they didn't like us, why didn't they go sit down or go back outside? Or tell us to fuck off?! Something!? Jesus, give us a bone! (Christian Death joke)

I recall "Deez Nuts" getting something of a nod of approval and I had the sense that they liked "Cereal And Beer" though I couldn't quantify that or anything. Had we known the audience situation beforehand we could've loaded up on things like "Red Pop." Oh well. "Deez Nuts," began to remind me of Alien Ant Farm while we were playing and I started to feel really dirty. Euuughghhghghgh.

The sound system looked impressive but the soundman didn't run anything through it except vocals. So I didn't hear any keyboards, and everything else just sounded wimpy and thin to me. Note to self: in the future, always play too loud and encourage those around you to do the same. Is this Devilcake or are we covering John Cage "4:33"?

None of the new songs really rocked my scrote. None of the old songs did either. We weren't playing so hot for the most part. Me especially, I was all over the place due to nerves and conflicting energies (I'm tired! I'm wired! I don't know what the hell I am!). I loathe the Peavey bass so intensely that it was affecting me as a person to continue playing it.

Nancy was flawless and kick-ass as was Todd. Darrin and I both had some issues but not to the point of shutting a whole song down, which is one thing that's never happened with Devilcake onstage. Even when (oh nevermind). I know Darrin wasn't happy with his playing afterwards but I assured him - and will continue to do so - that it's all part of the deal. Some gigs rule and others suck taint and then there's some where you just get through it and go do whatever afterwards. Just like life.

"Fribble" came off a little too Korn for my taste but oh well. You'll have that. Gabe was front and center for the whole set. I was so tempted to give him the bass for "Fribble" but I didn't want to freak him (or myself) out.

Steve the video guy was there, getting digital footage for the "Marshmallow" video he's working on. And Brian The Photographer got analog footage with Todd's camcorder. So we should at least have something decent to look at.

And yeah so anyway, after "Fribble" we got all arty on their little teenybopper asses, which was a complete waste of time. I mean honestly, if "I Want A Big Mac," with its three notes of E, G and A go over people's heads, then what chance does "Tear Off Your Head And Shit Down Your Neck", which is largely in 5/4 have? I axe you?!

My role at gigs is to be a cheerleader for the songs. To jump up and down when the audience should feel inspired to do the same. To stand there and look moody when we play ghouly parts. And when it's time to fuck shit up, then I fuck shit up.

Everybody already knew it was coming, except the kids. Everybody read the pre-eulogy of the Peavey bass on this very Live Journal. Everybody knew the only reason I was playing that piece of shit was because... there's a spacey improvisational hard-noise break for the last 10 minutes of "Shit Down Your Neck." As soon as we hit the break last night, I strummed the open strings on the bass and threw my hands in the air. The bass swung around limply. So I strummed again. And again I considered giving it to Gabe. But instead I let the strap reject the bass, which sent it soundly to the stage floor. Ooops. I hope that looked like an accident to somebody. I'm sure it didn't.

I threw my pick at the bass and then kicked it a couple of times. I jumped onto the body and nothing happened. So I stomped on the pickup and then some of the strings broke. I stomped it some more and then I dragged it to the edge of the stage. I set it up at an angle between the stage and floor of the club (the stage was only a couple of feet high) and jumped onto it. I felt like Paul Stanley in 1979 when he couldn't get his guitar to break properly at the end of the show. I jumped higher and stomped harder. The body gave way, then the neck. It was in three pieces and then I picked up one of the pieces and pulled off the volume knob, which I gave to Gabe. He then joined me in stomping the piss out of the rest of the bass. The neck was broken in half but still connected. The body was in at least three pieces and the pickup was on its own somewhere.

The stomping lasted several minutes. I brought out my real bass at that point and just barely finished the last part of "Shit Down Your Neck." When we finished, Gourley thanked the other bands and I think I interrupted him to say "FUCK PEAVEY" into the mic. Sorry about that.

Very shortly after the lights came back on I heard someone ask Gourley if we wanted a gig. I thought "sweet, now THAT'S how it's supposed to work. we rock like fuck and then we get another gig."

I packed my gear as quickly as possible and I was exhausted. My neck was ruined, my shoulders ached, my eyes hurt. It was good. As I was packing, at least two kids came up with pieces of bass and asked if they could take them. Go for it, I said.

I was carrying my too-heavy bass amp to my car (parked too far away of course) when Nancy said "Ian, come here - they're fighting over your bass in the parking lot." And sure enough, youths were tossing around bits of the Peavey. Ha. As it should be.

I snuck all of my gear out to the car and helped Darrin get his shit out. We loaded out fairly quickly all things considered.

Bits of bass were being passed around with alarming glee. Kicked around the parking lot, thrown, tossed, then finally carried. Who knows where they all ended up.

We got paid cash money from the soundman and we were in the parking lot, chilling and deciding who was going to Longhorn Steak House on the other side of the parking lot. It was at this point that part of my bass was thrust back at me by a kid who asked me to sign it. Was he kidding? It didn't matter. I signed the thing and told him he was now the owner of a chunk of my soul and that he had to take care of it. I could've been his dad lecturing him on why he needed to go to college. God.

Yeah, so like we went on around 7:30pm and we were done by 8:30 and I was home in bed by 10. We made $48 that I'm aware of, which will go into the band fund to make the next batch of t-shirts hopefully. And my neck is still killing me. Ow.

W E PLAYED:
Marshmallow
Wienermobile
Pie Hair Pie
I Want A Big Mac
Sacrificial Leg Of Lamb
Pizza Party
I Can't Believe It's Not Satan
Cereal And Beer
Deez Nuts
Fribble
Tear Off Your Head And Shit Down Your Neck

2001-08-03T18:01:00.000-04:00

Thursday 26 July 2001
High Five
DEVILCAKE | MRS CHILDREN | STAINLESS MIND | SALVAGE | AOG
lineup: Mike Gourley, Mike Chuck Bill, Ian Stewart, Todd Skaggs, Darrin Ailes

What a week for rock 'n roll! First Mike Chuck Bill and I drove down to King Crimson to see Bogart's on Monday! Holy shiot!

Then there was our gig on Thursday.

Not forgetting Cradle Of Filth at the Newport on that Friday! What a week for rock 'n roll.

Getting back to our gig on that Thursday...
We swarmed High Five pretty early, somewhere between 8:30 and 9pm. The doors weren't even open yet! And then when the drunk dude who worked there said it was okay for us to load in, we loaded in! Pretty amazing actually.

It was hotter than ass all night in there. We need try to get a group rate on those personal air-conditioning things they sell on cable. That would be sweet.

We got our shit set up fairly quickly, all things considered. And then we kinda lingered and waited for the soundman to show up and turn on some fuckin' lights! That stage is like a dark cave unless you've got some lights on it.

In the meantime we greeted our peeps, who were surprisingly numerous! What up peeps! Oh really, that's amazing, I gotta go do a soundcheck now.

The soundman just kinda set mics up and didn't chit-chat or anything. Which is actually fine. I think I'd rather have a soundman who's clearly indifferent from the beginning than, like, when they ask a bunch of questions while we're setting up as though anything we say is actually going to count for anything later when they do the actual mix during our set. At least this particular night we knew we weren't going to get shit through the monitors. And that's fine. It's just good to know beforehand.

We soundchecked with "Guacamole Damn It" but since everyone was already there and paying attention to us, we just went into the set from there.

In typical High Five fashion, we found out there were going to be a total of FIVE BANDS playing this particular Thursday night. But it didn't matter to us a bit because we were already set up, and we were already planning on playing a 35-minute set. So that's what we did.

Todd got all ghouly on the analog keyz-o-heaven for about a minute before Darrin gave the Final Four count on the cracked China cymbal. That's when we unleashed the first of 4 brand-spanking-fresh tracks on the hoes, "Wienermobile."

We had 2 smoke machines - I got one for my birthday, by the way, thanks to me - and they still weren't enough! We also had 2 strobe lights, which I masterfully (HA!) controlled by switching a powerstrip on and off with my foot. Unfortunately there was no good place to put the Laser Widow, which is the newest member of Devilcake. And though it only weighs around 12 ounces, it works the hardest of us all. Projecting a rotating red penagram inside of which we can all rock. I love you, Laser Widow.

Anyway um. So we rammed "Wienermobile" straight into "Marshmallow" with no stopping, just like we do sometimes. It felt MIGHTY FINE to play. The mix of "Wienermobile," which can safely be called Devilcake's Answer To 'I Can't Drive 55,' basically careens around every curve. Barely controlled fury. And then it rams into a wall at the end... and that's when fuckin' "Marshmallow" comes slamming down on dat azz like a ton of fuckin' marshmallows. It's like getting kicked dead in the mooth by the fuckin' Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Just like it (kinda) says in the song.

So yeah. It was definitely happenin' from the stage. We were havin' it, and people were clapping and cheering at totally inappropriate moments throughout our set. The more we threw at 'em, the more they dug it.

A lot of this can be attributed to the fact that Devilcake has always been popular among other bands. For some reason other musicians seem to dig our little bullshit maybe a little more than the Average Joe. Not to say the Average Joe doesn't enjoy a bit of Devilcake because he does. But the other musicians in the house always ALWAYS tend to give it up a little more for us.

Same was true at High Five. Whatever it was, there was love in the air. And we gave it back to them.

Todd's analog keys-o-cottage cheese cut through the mix like a swarm of bees. And Darrin's drumming was unusuallly lucid - I could hear everything he was doing, and that doesn't usually happen. But I couldn't hear (let alone FEEL) Chuck Bill's guitar. And my bass sound was fucking pathetic! Let this be a lesson to everyone: if you have a Peavey amp, use it in rehearsal ONLY! Never take it onstage because IT WILL FUCK YOU IN THE EYE EVERY TIME. I couldn't believe how middling and petty and weak and totally un-amazing the bass sound was. It's mostly my fault because I only concern myself with knobs that make the amp LOUDER, not the ones that control how shitty it sounds. I guess I'll have to do my homework before we go back!

But the Anniversary Bass (Yamaha fretless deal given to me by my wife on our second wedding anniversary - cheers mang) made a stunning debut. The only thing keeping that bass from propelling us all to greatness this particular evening was the pathological oversight of the dickhead playing it!

Which is to say that we're trying to get a little arty with it in our old age. We tune down to chuggy drop-D for "Hands Off" and "Chik Nugs." Which is fine.

Except that my dumb ass always forgets to tune back up before launching into "PIzza Party" with Darrin! Fuckin' DUH! It sounded like Todd, Mike Chuck Bill and I were all playing in some secret middle-eastern harmony that no one is supposed to know about.

No big deal really in the scheme of things. In fact I doubt anyone in the audience noticed.

They did, however, notice "Cereal And Beer"! Jesus, when Gourley introduce that mofo the place went nuts! What the hell?!?! At that point we were just kind of confused because, y'know, maybe they think we're talking about a different "Cereal And Beer."

Whatever. It worked. We had fun. They clapped and had fun. And if we didn't have so much gear to pack up after the set, Gourley and I both were going to roll around on the stage - separately, I must stress - and get all GG Allin with it at the end of "Fribble." But we both pussed out and just played the song normally.

What was funny OH HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA was people in the crowd yelling out song titles of songs we don't play anymore. I kinda felt bad. Almost like an explanation was in order. But it wasn't.

And I just want to say for the record that if anyone else ever says "Cibo Matto" in any context while I'm on stage and I hear them, I will personally stop what I'm doing and end their conversation!

For the 10,000th time, Devilcake was started in 1991. We were doing the food thing long before Cibo Matto even thought about being a BAND, let alone having a few songs about food. Fuck that shit. I will kill. I will kill. I will kill and feast upon the remains. And then I'll run back up onstage and finish "Fribble," bitch! I don't give a fuck!

Plus: we sold out of Devilcake t-shirts! Hot shiot! Which is good because now we can have some ghouly ones made!

WE PLAYED:
Wienermobile
Marshmallow
Sacrificial Leg Of Lamb
Hands Off My Oreos
Chicken Nuggets Of Sin
Pizza Party
Cereal And Beer
Deez Nuts
Salad Bar Man
Fribble

2001-05-20T12:10:00.000-04:00

Saturday 19 May 2001
Ruby Tuesday
KAZOWIE | DEVILCAKE
lineup: Mike Gourley, Ray Lilly, Mike Chuck Bill, Ian "stop calling me Beef" Stewart, Todd Skaggs, Darrin Ailes

I got the call at 8:45 Saturday morning. Kazowie's opening band cancelled, do we want to play in their place?

A hectic round of phonecalls later it was determined that, hell yes, Devilcake would gladly rock the ass off Ruby Tuesday. Sure.

Devilcake played at Ruby Tuesday in 1991. That's the only other time we were there. We were opening for Christian. Diego's main gig was with Christian but he played bass with Devilcake too. That was one of our first non-Apollo's gigs in the early days. And it was abysmal. The soundman hated us before we even played a note. That's when Todd was still doing the DJ thing, plus we had 3 or 4 guitar players and two or three bass players. We played through Christian's gear, which didn't help us much. Their equipment was fine, it just wasn't what we were used to. The drumset was this vast thing that sounded totally different to my set. I recall playing to about three people (if even) and being very depressed afterwards. Plus I forgot my snazzy jacket with the "I LOVE DICK" pin on it. And my favorite sunglasses were in the pocket too.

But that was nearly ten years ago. What wonders would Ruby Tuesday hold for Devilcake in 2001? If any?

We were the fuckin' early-birds when we got there at 9:15pm, of course. There were literally 3 people in the bar. We loaded our crap pretty quickly considering our proximity to OSU's Riot Alley. We weren't nervous exactly, Devilcake being a band of burly guys, but we weren't eager to test the drunken vandalistic tendencies of the nearby cooker-outers who were already on their porches with their grills cranked up to 11.

It was my first gig as a guitar player in oh, about six hundred years, and I enjoyed immensely both of the minutes it took me to set my shit up. Darrin pieced his drumkit together methodically while Todd struggled with technical difficulties with the MIDI and the Keyz O Death all night.

Due to the last-minute nature of the show, costumes were not procured. We decided to do Devilcake Unmasked. Except for me, I wore the same thing I always wear at Devilcake shows. Only this time people could actually see what it was because I wasn't trapped behind the damn drums!

We did a quick soundcheck on "Guacamole Damn It" that caused about 10 audience members to appear from nowhere. It felt extremely good to play "Guacamole Damn It," for reasons not easily quantifiable here. My amp was deliciously devilishly loud and the guitar was good 'n in tune. So it sounded nice to me. And it felt goooooooood. We tore the ass off that song.

The flu I've been battling for the past week (since the Record Convention last Saturday! No thanks to collectors of moldy albums!) barely even acknowledged the Dayquil I took. Which is to say that I played our entire set with a snout full of snizzot. I thought about doing a farmer's blow but I didn't want to end up wearing it. I knew there'd be a lot.

So anyway. I think we actually played a set in there too.

We did the soundcheck and then sat at the tables nearest to the stage, talking about music and the internet and music and telling jokes and whatever else.

The Devilcake Multimedia Crew (ie Robert) powered up the audio/visual capture devices (ie my camcorder) and Devilcake took the stage.

They kinda like to leave all the lights on at Ruby Tuesday's, which I don't really go for. I think rock 'n roll should be dark and misted with synthetic smoke from a fog machine. It's hard to get your rock on with that many damn lights blaring away. But we did get our rock on.

The Keyz O Death were launched for the old-school Devilcake intro, which goes "boop-a-doop-a-doop, a-boop-boop, do-dee boop-a-doop-a-doop." Apparently it's a Herbie Hancock song called "Chameleon." Alls I knows is that I when I hears that track I goes into a trance. And the only thing that brings me out of the trance is Gourley yelling "BOOBIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSS!!!!"

Did I mention that there's no ventilation in Ruby Tuesday's? I was sweating like an ass before we even played a note. I swear to Ace that with the strobe light behind me and sweat flying off my head, it looked like glitter! And the glitter that came off my old prism shirt looked like sweat! It was amazing!

I think I played the solo to "Pie Hair Pie" with the guitar behind my head. I've never had much use for cliched rock antics onstage, but at the same time, if you're going to play a highly uninventive guitar solo in the middle of a song that employs a mere four chords, then why not do something that's just so dumb that it has a shot at being funny?

Doing backing vocals destroyed my already flu-ravaged throat. But it was worth it. Totally.

I got to sweat and jump and play my guitar over my head. It was fucking brilliant.

Darrin did a great job on the drums. We did have a few trainwrecks but they were mostly my fault, from being in the wrong place at the wrong time or from just not paying attention to the songs. Todd's technicial difficulties with the Keyz O didn't stop him from beatboxing and doing backing vocals and generally keeping the show moving. Mike Chuck Bill is confident in his role as the Kim Thayil of Devilcake. Ha. Ray was over on bass, holding down the low end like a Columbus version of the guy in Social Distortion or some shit.

And Gourley... shit. The less audiences get into us, the more he gets into them. It's amazing. He rocked every bit as much in regular clothes. Devilcake is not just fancy clothes and an expensive light show and goth chicks dancing in cages! Oh no, there's so much more to it.

I'll have to come back with the set list. I didn't bring one home. Doh!

I know we played
Pie, Hair Pie
I Want A Big Mac
Salad Bar Man
Marshmallow
Soft Batch Mama
Deez Nuts
Stromboli Fever
Chicken Nuggets Of Sin
Guacamole Damn It
Fribble

I'm not positive of the exact order - but it's not like anyone is exactly in a position to dispute any of it. So there!