The Life of a Shitty Metal Band, pt. 2
It was Spring of 1998 before we really started to evolve as a band. We were practicing in my basement in a little 12x14 room. On one wall I put up posters and pictures cut out of every guitar magazine I owned, to inspire us while we played. Kevin, Amadon and I had our respective corners while Derek sat on his amp by a wall. We all looked like we couldn't agree on a visual theme for the band. Kevin looked like a college slob, I looked angelic with my golden parted hair, Amadon was goth with his dyed-black hair and clothes, Derek a punk with his spiky dyed-red hair and orange jumpsuit.
Practices were slowly productive. That May we got our first gig playing with DKP (Dean Kotaska's Penis) and another band (name eludes me) at the Spring Days concert. All bands were high-school, we were the most green. I remember clearly the moment Mike Anderson (dead now) anounced into the mic, "Will the members of Dusk please report to the stage?" and feeling butterflies. We got three songs. Starting out with For Whom the Bell Tolls, an overly ambitious attempt at the easiest Metallica song ever to play, we were surprised to hear the audience clap for us. Next we played Dead Forest, an original ripping of Dante but with a cool tribal durmbeat which has gone through numerous rewrites before being scrapped due to being just too cheesy. Amadon couldn't hear Kevin and vice versa, so we got horrendously off-time. Last we played the Happy Song, done originally by Kevin's old band (who turned into DKP and Kevin ended up drumming for them that night as well as with us), sung by Kevin.
Having received a good respone to this show, we were feeling much better about our place in the high school music scene. We set to practicing every wednesday about 7pm. our girlfriends all hung out in my bedroom while we played, and we actually started to sound a little better. We set up an outside show during Crazy Days behind Cellblock '94, a crappy little teen club located in the basement of the Memorial building in Devils Lake. We practiced every day for a week leading up to it, were feeling very confident about things. Unfortunately we didn't realize just how different the acoustics are outside. We had no monitors, we didn't seem loud enough, and we only advertised the show the day it was going on, so attendance was horseshit.
We didn't do another gig until New Years Eve of '98. Amadon had become friends with members of a band called Iron Root Tree Folk, who wanted us to play the show wih them. I remember the soundcheck going really well, and we got to try out a couple songs that we had worked on. Unfortunately, we kept getting our set cut short until we only had 3-4 songs. One them was the Three Little Pigs by Green Jelly.
I don't think we had any gigs after that. We still got together to practice, but not as frequently.
Practices were slowly productive. That May we got our first gig playing with DKP (Dean Kotaska's Penis) and another band (name eludes me) at the Spring Days concert. All bands were high-school, we were the most green. I remember clearly the moment Mike Anderson (dead now) anounced into the mic, "Will the members of Dusk please report to the stage?" and feeling butterflies. We got three songs. Starting out with For Whom the Bell Tolls, an overly ambitious attempt at the easiest Metallica song ever to play, we were surprised to hear the audience clap for us. Next we played Dead Forest, an original ripping of Dante but with a cool tribal durmbeat which has gone through numerous rewrites before being scrapped due to being just too cheesy. Amadon couldn't hear Kevin and vice versa, so we got horrendously off-time. Last we played the Happy Song, done originally by Kevin's old band (who turned into DKP and Kevin ended up drumming for them that night as well as with us), sung by Kevin.
Having received a good respone to this show, we were feeling much better about our place in the high school music scene. We set to practicing every wednesday about 7pm. our girlfriends all hung out in my bedroom while we played, and we actually started to sound a little better. We set up an outside show during Crazy Days behind Cellblock '94, a crappy little teen club located in the basement of the Memorial building in Devils Lake. We practiced every day for a week leading up to it, were feeling very confident about things. Unfortunately we didn't realize just how different the acoustics are outside. We had no monitors, we didn't seem loud enough, and we only advertised the show the day it was going on, so attendance was horseshit.
We didn't do another gig until New Years Eve of '98. Amadon had become friends with members of a band called Iron Root Tree Folk, who wanted us to play the show wih them. I remember the soundcheck going really well, and we got to try out a couple songs that we had worked on. Unfortunately, we kept getting our set cut short until we only had 3-4 songs. One them was the Three Little Pigs by Green Jelly.
I don't think we had any gigs after that. We still got together to practice, but not as frequently.
posted by BoneDaddy at 1:10 AM
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