Land O' Little Rage.
O-L-D is when you want new socks and a nap for Christmas, every year.
O-L-D is when you detest 99% of all Christmas carols that aren't sung by Bing Crosby, Tony Bennett or somebody else who sounds like a refugee from "Holiday Inn." (The movie, not the hotel chain.)
O-L-D is whut I am.
But after you watch Don Depew in a full rock squat rip it up on a flying V that he happens to have shoved in the face of his equally O-L-D buddy stagefront next to you while the two of you are holding Don up one per bent knee, O-L-D seems pretty not bad, alright. I had Don and Mark sign the copy of the first Breaker single from 1983 that I rescued from the vintage store in the Bitchland basement (Mark intimated that I got ripped off because I paid 15 bucks but it was missing the picture sleeve) and Don wrote "Yep I'm 51!" which made me smile.
God must have smiled on Bill Peters' big Auburn indoor air festival for the benefit of the Cleveland Food Bank last night, because the weather and the streets were clear and only started switching to crummy rain about the time the show was letting out (and today everything turned back to snowy and icy and generally poopy, I got gone just in time). I am in the middle of a big fat hairy work deal right now and time is tight, but hey, it's Bill, it's charity, it's a whole bunch of bands I love and haven't had a chance to see all f00king year, so off I went, and after nearly 24 hours of mondo hassles beginning when I had to leave work at 6 pm Friday and spend three (3) hours getting home at rush hour, I arrived just in time to snag the LAST parking spot in the B-land lot and say hi to the guest of honor, Iron Ingo, before he introduced the first band. I had to be there promptly at 4 pm because the lineup this year had a bunch of my Auburn favorites playing early in the afternoon, so I did not want to miss any of them, especially Venomin James who are probably my number one CLE band these days. 'Twas good to see them n' Bill n' Chris E n' Mark n' Don n' Adam n' Sandy n' "Rockin' Angel" n' Dave P n' all the other bands who I don't see enough of. I think there were a few less people in attendance than last year's Xmas Auburn fest, but it was still a good crowd and a ship ton of food was donated so yeah, it ruled :-)
Initially I was thinking of bailing out after Breaker played at like 8 o'clock, but I decided I wanted to see the "reformed" Black Death (which is now only 1/4 black and is fronted by Sandy who is a short little white lady with a powerful voice, but "White Death" would totally ruin the concept, LOL). I daresay the dude on second guitar who I think is also the dude from Mandrake has some darn amazing loooong hair that gives Ross Dolan from Immolation a run for his money. Siki Spacek from the original Black Death showed up as a very special guest, dressed like a metal Hendrix complete with leather coat, hat, guitar, scarf and rose. He didn't sing anything with the band but danced a lot in the audience waving his guitar about dangerously and looked to be having a real good time.
Then Chris K from Exploding Lies had said the band who was closing, Maiden Voyage (an Iron Maiden tribute act, duh) were really good, so I ended up sticking around till the very very end. Unfortunately 8-9 hours of metal with no breaks on little sleep wore me clean out and by the time the second last band came on, I was pretty much reduced to sitting in a chair on the sidelines going wuhhhhhhh. But after Maiden Voyage finished, Ingo came out dressed as Eddie Maiden in a Santa suit and stumbled around onstage for a while and then threw presents from his sack into the audience, which was funny and cool, so I was glad I didn't leave early and miss it, even though I didn't manage to snag any of the free gifts and was in fact almost physically maimed by the elbows of large tall drunk dudes who jumped for the wrapped CDs and t-shirts like a gang of uncoordinated Lebrons at the net.
The only bummer was that I had to miss the aforementioned 'Sploding Lies who were playing at Now That's Crass on the other side of town about the same time as Black Death was going on. It would have been great to see those guys again too, but I guess I'll have to catch their January show instead. Oh, and that I spent all my money at the vintage store in the basement of the club buying the aforementioned Breaker 45 and a Sohio emblem and a "St. Vitus Ladies Auxiliary" embroidered patch (which likely came from some local church but doom heads will get the joke) and a black T-shirt that said BEER on the front in big white letters, that's all, just BEER, which is obviously perfect attire for so many festive occasions in my life these days, but after paying for all that I was too bahroke to buy any more beer for the rest of the night, but that was probably a good thing as I'd already had two and got sleepy enough by the end of the night sober and drinking is bad for my stomach and my anxiety and my potassium levels and anyway my fatty liver levels are up.
Postscript: Driving back gingerly over the ice to the airport, I got to hear on the radio "Winter Wonderland" in Hungarian and a Giant Eagle commercial touting some brand of sausage as "The Mother of All Meats." Saddam should have been an ad man, he'd have lived longer.
O-L-D is when you detest 99% of all Christmas carols that aren't sung by Bing Crosby, Tony Bennett or somebody else who sounds like a refugee from "Holiday Inn." (The movie, not the hotel chain.)
O-L-D is whut I am.
But after you watch Don Depew in a full rock squat rip it up on a flying V that he happens to have shoved in the face of his equally O-L-D buddy stagefront next to you while the two of you are holding Don up one per bent knee, O-L-D seems pretty not bad, alright. I had Don and Mark sign the copy of the first Breaker single from 1983 that I rescued from the vintage store in the Bitchland basement (Mark intimated that I got ripped off because I paid 15 bucks but it was missing the picture sleeve) and Don wrote "Yep I'm 51!" which made me smile.
God must have smiled on Bill Peters' big Auburn indoor air festival for the benefit of the Cleveland Food Bank last night, because the weather and the streets were clear and only started switching to crummy rain about the time the show was letting out (and today everything turned back to snowy and icy and generally poopy, I got gone just in time). I am in the middle of a big fat hairy work deal right now and time is tight, but hey, it's Bill, it's charity, it's a whole bunch of bands I love and haven't had a chance to see all f00king year, so off I went, and after nearly 24 hours of mondo hassles beginning when I had to leave work at 6 pm Friday and spend three (3) hours getting home at rush hour, I arrived just in time to snag the LAST parking spot in the B-land lot and say hi to the guest of honor, Iron Ingo, before he introduced the first band. I had to be there promptly at 4 pm because the lineup this year had a bunch of my Auburn favorites playing early in the afternoon, so I did not want to miss any of them, especially Venomin James who are probably my number one CLE band these days. 'Twas good to see them n' Bill n' Chris E n' Mark n' Don n' Adam n' Sandy n' "Rockin' Angel" n' Dave P n' all the other bands who I don't see enough of. I think there were a few less people in attendance than last year's Xmas Auburn fest, but it was still a good crowd and a ship ton of food was donated so yeah, it ruled :-)
Initially I was thinking of bailing out after Breaker played at like 8 o'clock, but I decided I wanted to see the "reformed" Black Death (which is now only 1/4 black and is fronted by Sandy who is a short little white lady with a powerful voice, but "White Death" would totally ruin the concept, LOL). I daresay the dude on second guitar who I think is also the dude from Mandrake has some darn amazing loooong hair that gives Ross Dolan from Immolation a run for his money. Siki Spacek from the original Black Death showed up as a very special guest, dressed like a metal Hendrix complete with leather coat, hat, guitar, scarf and rose. He didn't sing anything with the band but danced a lot in the audience waving his guitar about dangerously and looked to be having a real good time.
Then Chris K from Exploding Lies had said the band who was closing, Maiden Voyage (an Iron Maiden tribute act, duh) were really good, so I ended up sticking around till the very very end. Unfortunately 8-9 hours of metal with no breaks on little sleep wore me clean out and by the time the second last band came on, I was pretty much reduced to sitting in a chair on the sidelines going wuhhhhhhh. But after Maiden Voyage finished, Ingo came out dressed as Eddie Maiden in a Santa suit and stumbled around onstage for a while and then threw presents from his sack into the audience, which was funny and cool, so I was glad I didn't leave early and miss it, even though I didn't manage to snag any of the free gifts and was in fact almost physically maimed by the elbows of large tall drunk dudes who jumped for the wrapped CDs and t-shirts like a gang of uncoordinated Lebrons at the net.
The only bummer was that I had to miss the aforementioned 'Sploding Lies who were playing at Now That's Crass on the other side of town about the same time as Black Death was going on. It would have been great to see those guys again too, but I guess I'll have to catch their January show instead. Oh, and that I spent all my money at the vintage store in the basement of the club buying the aforementioned Breaker 45 and a Sohio emblem and a "St. Vitus Ladies Auxiliary" embroidered patch (which likely came from some local church but doom heads will get the joke) and a black T-shirt that said BEER on the front in big white letters, that's all, just BEER, which is obviously perfect attire for so many festive occasions in my life these days, but after paying for all that I was too bahroke to buy any more beer for the rest of the night, but that was probably a good thing as I'd already had two and got sleepy enough by the end of the night sober and drinking is bad for my stomach and my anxiety and my potassium levels and anyway my fatty liver levels are up.
Postscript: Driving back gingerly over the ice to the airport, I got to hear on the radio "Winter Wonderland" in Hungarian and a Giant Eagle commercial touting some brand of sausage as "The Mother of All Meats." Saddam should have been an ad man, he'd have lived longer.