Blue October

I worked another show tonight.

I remember seeing Blue October when they were playing the duck pond at UNM. I remember they played there an awful lot. And despite all of the criticisms shared among Jake Tittmann and me between classes, this band still “made-it”.

But what does “making it” even mean with bands?

I work these shows at Sunshine, I get to see the bands pre and post-show, and… I see the fans they have to deal with.

There is a distinct boundary between each fan-demographic, from show to show. After tonight, I’m not sure I’d ever want to be Blue-October.  I also realize that I’m not sure Blue October wants to be Blue October either.

I remember working at the radio station (103.3 The Zone! FM). We used to do these things called “sound check parties” where a group of listeners were entitled to show up early enough at a show to watch the band “sound check” some special songs for a select group of “contest winners”.

Apparently another pop-rock FM radio station called “The Peak” did the same thing for this Blue October show, only the singer and the band didn’t appear to like doing it at all. They douched around playing whatever they felt like, including a half-assed cover of the oldies classic “Blue Moon” while the singer kept his back to the “winning crowd” of 20-or-so gawking radio contest winners.

It was sad, but reasonable, because…what would I do in that situation? Clearly, being a one or two-hit band means performing a lot of mini-concerts like that to “contest winners” who see you, not as a human performer, but a prize that was won for a “rare exclusive group” of “lucky” people.

Admittedly, I have certain aspirations for a rockstar-like status. But it is strictly (I hope) for reasons that isn’t a stigma to being a “rockstar”. So seeing this kind of stuff makes me want to re-evaluate what it entails to be a popular musician at all.

Of course, it all depends on the demographic. Clearly these guys felt that being a simple pop-rock band was the answer. But when a group of these fans (drunk, asinine human-beings) howl nonsense from the stage and drown out a piano/pizzicato violin solo that took you years to master, have you ever questioned what-the-hell-happened along the way?

The answer is compromise. The universe smells it on your band, and so shall ye receive its due audience.

There’s a load of vomit, and we’re all out of shovels.

My mom once told me that my Grandpa was trying to become a boxer until the traumatic day he punched an opponent in the stomach, causing him to vomit spaghetti all over the place.

The story was told to me when I was probably 8 years old, but it came back to my memory with such vivid splendor tonight as I was told to clean up a full stomachs-worth of spaghetti on the balcony at Sunshine Theater.

The smell of stomach acid, although consistent in aroma from person to person, is a smell that I’ll never get used to. This wasn’t a simple pile to be sopped up by a mop and bucket, but a series of massive splashes that started on a table top, slapped to the floor, and lubricated the foot steps that had trafficked through it, leaving a slippery 10-foot radius of fun and fragrance.

Tonight would have been the first night working at Sunshine that I didn’t have to deal with bodily ejections, and I almost got away with it.

Sidenote: Killswitch Engage played. I care about that kind of music as much as I care about seeing McDonald’s on roadtrips… but the drums sounded super good.

Never trust anything that bleeds for 5 hours and doesn’t die.

Today I went to band practice and Will didn’t show up. After an hour of Dustin, Tommy and I standing around in the dreadfully cold practice space, we parted ways.

I worked the Skinny Puppy show tonight at Sunshine Theater. I saw Will there, and talked about how mad I was that he didn’t show up to practice. Then we smiled a lot about I-don’t-know-what and I again remembered how hard it is to stay mad at Will.

While washing beer glasses during my barback duties, I sliced my finger on a broken glass in the sink. It wasn’t a bad slice or anything, but I found it strange that it didn’t stop bleeding for a good 5 hours. My band-aids refused to stay on, so it’s possible that somebody got a lip-full of blood among beer sips.

Gwar

I worked the Gwar show tonight. Never seen Gwar before. Go see Gwar.

Highlights of the show:

- Bringing out a tortured soul on a vertically positioned medical table and sawing him apart, eating his entrails.

- Tearing off Obama’s head and having his jugular decorate the crowd in red fluid, all with accompanying metal riffs, like so:

Yo-han Sebastian must be rolling in his…

Tonight I worked a show for a hip-hop crew called Tech 9 (click for photo), of Insane Clown Posse’s Psychopathic Records.

Lots of fans with clown make-up. Lots of wicked clowny aggression. Lots of parents dropping their kids off.

A good movie idea? Juggalos vs. Trekkies. With Braveheart-style battle footage. But no weapons, just slapping, pushing, calling names, etc.

Kicking and screaming… and biting.

All the attention you'll ever need...

I started the day with an alcohol certification class so I can legally continue to be a barback at Sunshine Theater. I again remembered what it was like to be taught in a structured-for-retards kind of class.  Later at work, I explained how I gave five precious hours of my life away. The bartender girl just thought it was funny that I still managed to miss one question on the test.

This is the second show I’ve worked at Sunshine since I was hired a month ago. It was a hip-hop show, not very big. The first one was a Static X show, and was pretty packed. But I still had to clean up just as much vomit and ass-explosion as before.

There’s a lot of fast walking I do around the place, but I seem to end up in the right places at the right time. Tonight I got to witness the security guys drag a belligerently drunk girl out of the crowd and throw her outside. Minutes later, I saw her on the other side of the building hand-cuffed with a couple of cop cars surrounding her. Next time I walked past the window, the entire fleet of APD was surrounding her.

I didn’t really find out for sure what happened. When I was scraping off graffiti outside, there were 20-30 cop cars surrounding the building, some officers arguing with witnesses. All I gathered was that a mob of civilians protested how the cops were treating the girl, and a physical altercation developed that required the police officers to get all their downtown blokes to help’m out.

All because of one girl and alcohol.