(no subject)
Thursday 3.13.08
Around 3.7.08 DEAD P.A. was offered a slot on the Guitar Hero 3 stage at Rockfest '08 in downtown Austin during the South by Southwest Music Conference. We were initially offered two slots - one on thursday (3.13.08) and one on friday (3.14.08). The promoter had arranged for big name headliners to appear such as Perry Farrel, Ministry guitarist Mike Sascia, a guy from the Skatenigs and Ice Cube. Tonia had planned to go to Dallas the same weekend with our neighbor, Cindy who was attending a conference for inventors to reveal her idea. George and I left Wednesday night (3.12.08) and spent the night at his ex-girlfriend's house. We all went to eat at a mexican restaurant about two blocks away called Polvo's. It was over priced and mediocre. A friend of George's by the name of Amanda Stillwell met up with us at the restaurant with two of her friend's in tow. We stayed for a couple hours and eventually made it back to Charlotte's for sleep. I awoke on thursday around 8am and drifted in my thoughts, did some stretching and took a shower before George got up around 1pm. We headed to a sandwich shop near downtown to meet up with yet another friend of George's Bill Orndorf. Bill had graciously offered to film us during our performance that evening. Bill mentioned that he was working on a new series for Adult Swim that sounded ridiculous and entertaining. After lunch we went back to Charlotte's to pick up our gear but before heading for the show I phoned a local promoter to invite him out. He mentioned that he could probably get us booked at another venue that night or the following day. After a few phone calls back and forth we determined it wasn't really feasible.
Just before heading for the show, we dropped off promotional material at two nearby record shops - "DJ Dojo" and another which escapes my memory at the moment. We put two cds on consignment at the unnamed store.
George and I made our way to the stage downtown off of Trinity and 7th. Our stage was in a tent run by a drummer/stage manager named Eric also known as evl E. I met Eric at a previous show in Austin when we opened for Concord Dawn. We set up all our gear and it seemed as though we were unlikely to have much of a crowd based on the flow of people. Two much larger stages also sponsored by Guitar Hero 3 dominated the city block and were aimed directly at the tent. The stages alternated performance times so viewers wouldnt have to wait for bands setup time. Unfortunately, the stages booked mostly incoherant punk and metal bands - which probably deterred most anyone that might have tried to even look for our stage in the tent. In a flurry of phone calls and text messages george was able to gather many of the Austin friends that wanted to see us despite the confusion. Ronny and BJ White were there, Amanda Stillwell, Bill Orndorf, and many others... Before the show George got a little video footage and convinced some Jaigermeister girls to take pictures with us. We started about 30 minutes late because the DJ before us also went on late. Eric and everyone playing was extremely easy going about the flow of things so no one was uppity about the time issues. Aside from momentarily losing George's wireless mic (and his subsequent freakout) before we began the set started with a bang.
After the show I got to briefly hang with some old Houston friends that now live in Austin. Steve , the promoter from Area 512 showed up and squared away most of the money previously owed from another show in addition to bestowing a bunch of free t-shirts on us. We chatted about the possibility of doing a show in Austin with him. Everyone seemed to be pushing us to go see infected mushroom that evening but we ended up getting a late dinner with Colin, Brian Tibedeaux and his girlfriend at Chili's. Our waitress messed up the appetizer order - so we got two of them. It all comes out in the wash since their idea of cheese nachos smothered in chicken and trimmings means 13 individual corn chips.
We followed Colin to his home in Pflugerville where we stayed the evening and took our shot at playing Guitar Hero 3 for the first time on his X-box. We were really, really bad at it. The nature of the game requires you sync your movements to the visual cues in the game - which don't line up with the audio. If you try to perform by listening to the music - you fail miserably. I told george that it looked bleak for our future as musicians.
Around 3.7.08 DEAD P.A. was offered a slot on the Guitar Hero 3 stage at Rockfest '08 in downtown Austin during the South by Southwest Music Conference. We were initially offered two slots - one on thursday (3.13.08) and one on friday (3.14.08). The promoter had arranged for big name headliners to appear such as Perry Farrel, Ministry guitarist Mike Sascia, a guy from the Skatenigs and Ice Cube. Tonia had planned to go to Dallas the same weekend with our neighbor, Cindy who was attending a conference for inventors to reveal her idea. George and I left Wednesday night (3.12.08) and spent the night at his ex-girlfriend's house. We all went to eat at a mexican restaurant about two blocks away called Polvo's. It was over priced and mediocre. A friend of George's by the name of Amanda Stillwell met up with us at the restaurant with two of her friend's in tow. We stayed for a couple hours and eventually made it back to Charlotte's for sleep. I awoke on thursday around 8am and drifted in my thoughts, did some stretching and took a shower before George got up around 1pm. We headed to a sandwich shop near downtown to meet up with yet another friend of George's Bill Orndorf. Bill had graciously offered to film us during our performance that evening. Bill mentioned that he was working on a new series for Adult Swim that sounded ridiculous and entertaining. After lunch we went back to Charlotte's to pick up our gear but before heading for the show I phoned a local promoter to invite him out. He mentioned that he could probably get us booked at another venue that night or the following day. After a few phone calls back and forth we determined it wasn't really feasible.
Just before heading for the show, we dropped off promotional material at two nearby record shops - "DJ Dojo" and another which escapes my memory at the moment. We put two cds on consignment at the unnamed store.
George and I made our way to the stage downtown off of Trinity and 7th. Our stage was in a tent run by a drummer/stage manager named Eric also known as evl E. I met Eric at a previous show in Austin when we opened for Concord Dawn. We set up all our gear and it seemed as though we were unlikely to have much of a crowd based on the flow of people. Two much larger stages also sponsored by Guitar Hero 3 dominated the city block and were aimed directly at the tent. The stages alternated performance times so viewers wouldnt have to wait for bands setup time. Unfortunately, the stages booked mostly incoherant punk and metal bands - which probably deterred most anyone that might have tried to even look for our stage in the tent. In a flurry of phone calls and text messages george was able to gather many of the Austin friends that wanted to see us despite the confusion. Ronny and BJ White were there, Amanda Stillwell, Bill Orndorf, and many others... Before the show George got a little video footage and convinced some Jaigermeister girls to take pictures with us. We started about 30 minutes late because the DJ before us also went on late. Eric and everyone playing was extremely easy going about the flow of things so no one was uppity about the time issues. Aside from momentarily losing George's wireless mic (and his subsequent freakout) before we began the set started with a bang.
After the show I got to briefly hang with some old Houston friends that now live in Austin. Steve , the promoter from Area 512 showed up and squared away most of the money previously owed from another show in addition to bestowing a bunch of free t-shirts on us. We chatted about the possibility of doing a show in Austin with him. Everyone seemed to be pushing us to go see infected mushroom that evening but we ended up getting a late dinner with Colin, Brian Tibedeaux and his girlfriend at Chili's. Our waitress messed up the appetizer order - so we got two of them. It all comes out in the wash since their idea of cheese nachos smothered in chicken and trimmings means 13 individual corn chips.
We followed Colin to his home in Pflugerville where we stayed the evening and took our shot at playing Guitar Hero 3 for the first time on his X-box. We were really, really bad at it. The nature of the game requires you sync your movements to the visual cues in the game - which don't line up with the audio. If you try to perform by listening to the music - you fail miserably. I told george that it looked bleak for our future as musicians.