the Show with the Ataris
Lets see. So yesterday started off at Jordan's house. We were all running around like crazy and mad because the lights on the trailer didn't work and jordan had already got pegged by the cops for not having working lights on a trailer back in his SLD days. So Cory says that we should take over to his neighbor. If you know anything about Cory's neighbor he's one of the nicest guys anyone has met and he's an extreme, bad to the bone handy man. So we take over to him and he says "Oh it's probably just the grounding wire." So he goes back inside and gets a hammer. And everyone is pretty much like "Uhhh....what are you going to do with a hammer?" He then proceeds to wail on the screw the wire is around and believe it or not the lights start working. Ha ha ha. At this point we're already about an hour late due to the trailer but we pack up real fast and leave. We get some gas, some XXL monsters, play some funny yelling games on the way there to annoy jordan and then about 45 minutes later we get to the American Legion Hall.
I think we were the happiest people there. Everyone looked pretty miserable with the exception of the people I knew. It was like everyone I didn't know was trying to take a "poetic" silence. We are all guns all the time!--was a phrase I kept running around saying. We start loading our stuff into the building. It looks lie a train wreck where we kept it. Ha ha ha. Then we all went off and kinda did our own thing. I setup my recording stuff next to Josh Kirkland and talked to him for a while. He's a nice guy. So a few hours go by and the show starts. Oh and a million people show up. I was worried because I didn't know anyone coming. But seriously ATOM always puts on good, well paying, organized shows.
Cody gets up and plays his acoustic set. It sounds good. I recorded it. I'm gonna edit what I have for him later on and give it to him. The next band gets up and they have some type of fall out with my man Chris Holley. So I'm thinking a few of them don't really like us that much. But I don't hate them. I thought they sounded good. Lots of energy. I was actually nervous when we got up because I wasn't sure if we'd be able to follow that. So Michael Silver (the awesome guy heading Atom) comes up and says to take our sweet time setting up because the Ataris are running a bit late and aren't here yet. That was fine by us...we were all nervous anyways for some reason. I think we were more nervous about the Ataris getting here and whether or not Michael Silver was gonna get his butt kicked. He didn't. I wouldn't have let it happen anyways. So we're setting up real slow. I'm putting kevins amp on the stand, warming up the tubes, connecting my pedals, tying the sleigh bells to the mic stand, connecting my footswitch....wait...where is it? I had no idea. So Michael S. comes up. Says the Ataris are here. And I'm freakin out because my footswitch isn't anywhere. So I go look through all our crap, I dumped out my bag..not in there. I go to the van...not in there. I come back in and jordan said he found it in my bad. Crazy eh? So I get up on stage, tune my guitar, set the eq and volume for my amp and we start playing. All and all our set is good...probably one of the best we've played. My only issues were the mic kept cutting in and out, the first mic I used shocked me if I touched it and my delay pedal kept turning on and off (which later screwed up part of "These White Lines"). But we played the new song...it seemed like people really liked it. Altogether we got a great response...people were singing the words to the songs they knew and it was great. The last song comes around and at the end we all go crazy cory with the synth, parker with the bass drum and me slamming my guitar against the ground and looping the impact sounds. I'm honestly not even sure if my guitar still works.
This next part is by far the best part of the night. We start breaking down and move our stuff off stage. I carry my guitar or something small to the back where we're keeping our stuff and the lead singer doesn't walk...he literally runs up to me, shakes my hand and like gives me a man hug and says "You guys were so fucking awesome!" He goes on and tells me how we have a lot of good influences or at least it sounds like all I remember is him saying Minus the Bear (which is a for sure). He says for us to come to him later on and get some contact info from him and when we get our cd done to send him one and he'll talk it up to "people" he knows. This can only be good for us. He goes on and talks to everyone else. But lets just look at this. One of my musical idles growing up just came up to me and said that the band I play in is fucking amazing. And he said that he loved my vocals. Ha ha ha. Wow! I mean seriously...I've been having issues lately with my vocals...like doubting any talent I had..if you've been with me in the past few weeks you'd know that. He just complimented me on that. It was so surreal. I mean I don't usually see people as huge giant celebs. But he has great vocals. They're very perfect and precise. And it's just amazing to be complimented by someone of his caliber. He also wasn't a douche like I pegged him to be. It was honestly like talking to my brother or Davey or someone. He likes American Football and that mid-west early indie stuff. He talked to my friend Sam for a while about the Wilco album (Sam was wearing a Wilco shirt). So all in all it was a great show. Oh and we still managed to get paid a good amount of money. Thanks ATOM!
I'll put more into this later. That's it for now. Last night was great!
-mike
I think we were the happiest people there. Everyone looked pretty miserable with the exception of the people I knew. It was like everyone I didn't know was trying to take a "poetic" silence. We are all guns all the time!--was a phrase I kept running around saying. We start loading our stuff into the building. It looks lie a train wreck where we kept it. Ha ha ha. Then we all went off and kinda did our own thing. I setup my recording stuff next to Josh Kirkland and talked to him for a while. He's a nice guy. So a few hours go by and the show starts. Oh and a million people show up. I was worried because I didn't know anyone coming. But seriously ATOM always puts on good, well paying, organized shows.
Cody gets up and plays his acoustic set. It sounds good. I recorded it. I'm gonna edit what I have for him later on and give it to him. The next band gets up and they have some type of fall out with my man Chris Holley. So I'm thinking a few of them don't really like us that much. But I don't hate them. I thought they sounded good. Lots of energy. I was actually nervous when we got up because I wasn't sure if we'd be able to follow that. So Michael Silver (the awesome guy heading Atom) comes up and says to take our sweet time setting up because the Ataris are running a bit late and aren't here yet. That was fine by us...we were all nervous anyways for some reason. I think we were more nervous about the Ataris getting here and whether or not Michael Silver was gonna get his butt kicked. He didn't. I wouldn't have let it happen anyways. So we're setting up real slow. I'm putting kevins amp on the stand, warming up the tubes, connecting my pedals, tying the sleigh bells to the mic stand, connecting my footswitch....wait...where is it? I had no idea. So Michael S. comes up. Says the Ataris are here. And I'm freakin out because my footswitch isn't anywhere. So I go look through all our crap, I dumped out my bag..not in there. I go to the van...not in there. I come back in and jordan said he found it in my bad. Crazy eh? So I get up on stage, tune my guitar, set the eq and volume for my amp and we start playing. All and all our set is good...probably one of the best we've played. My only issues were the mic kept cutting in and out, the first mic I used shocked me if I touched it and my delay pedal kept turning on and off (which later screwed up part of "These White Lines"). But we played the new song...it seemed like people really liked it. Altogether we got a great response...people were singing the words to the songs they knew and it was great. The last song comes around and at the end we all go crazy cory with the synth, parker with the bass drum and me slamming my guitar against the ground and looping the impact sounds. I'm honestly not even sure if my guitar still works.
This next part is by far the best part of the night. We start breaking down and move our stuff off stage. I carry my guitar or something small to the back where we're keeping our stuff and the lead singer doesn't walk...he literally runs up to me, shakes my hand and like gives me a man hug and says "You guys were so fucking awesome!" He goes on and tells me how we have a lot of good influences or at least it sounds like all I remember is him saying Minus the Bear (which is a for sure). He says for us to come to him later on and get some contact info from him and when we get our cd done to send him one and he'll talk it up to "people" he knows. This can only be good for us. He goes on and talks to everyone else. But lets just look at this. One of my musical idles growing up just came up to me and said that the band I play in is fucking amazing. And he said that he loved my vocals. Ha ha ha. Wow! I mean seriously...I've been having issues lately with my vocals...like doubting any talent I had..if you've been with me in the past few weeks you'd know that. He just complimented me on that. It was so surreal. I mean I don't usually see people as huge giant celebs. But he has great vocals. They're very perfect and precise. And it's just amazing to be complimented by someone of his caliber. He also wasn't a douche like I pegged him to be. It was honestly like talking to my brother or Davey or someone. He likes American Football and that mid-west early indie stuff. He talked to my friend Sam for a while about the Wilco album (Sam was wearing a Wilco shirt). So all in all it was a great show. Oh and we still managed to get paid a good amount of money. Thanks ATOM!
I'll put more into this later. That's it for now. Last night was great!
-mike