The Barn Party:Building a foundation, and a stage

"Eric is going to have to start helping with this night shift part of the job!" Or at least, that's how I feel when it's 4am, and Matt and I are the only one's unloading equipment. My annoying dog doesn't help - it would be nice if she would carry something!

I've been up since around 11am Saturday morning waiting for Eric, and Matt to come over and pick the equipment up then head out to Brown County. I've got a headache, but at this point I really don't care. I'm lucky that Jessika microwaves me 3 burrito's, and turns out my lights. I'm unlucky that I got Herbal Ben Ben so drunk that he can't help unload anything.

Matt and I quickly unloaded everything, but I still have barely had any time to look back on the night, however I can tell you it was one of the better show's we've done. We played everysong at least once, a few twice, and even put in a crazy rock version of Rocky Raccoon.

The night before I had got a call from Matt telling me his brother had finished the banner for us. It's an awesome peice of artwork, and definately helped with the vibe in Brown County.

All week we had worried about rain, and Friday we were unable to get out to the show to help set up because of rain. By Saturday morning, our 4 hours of road crew work from the days before had been swept away. It would now take a truck, or a damn good driver to manuver out to the show. Thank god we were playing in the county where everyone owned a truck.

At 3pm. no one was at the party that was supposed to be all day. Around 5 I started getting drunk. Really drunk. That kind of drunk you get when you try to throw a party, you're afraid no one will show up - so you start drinking all the alcohol you spent your money on. It made me feel better...kinda.
Six hours later people began showing up. All of a sudden it seemed like 40 or 50 people were there. We had played 2 small sets, and stopped to let the White Lightning Boys do their thing - which by the way if you've never seen them DO IT.

Around 10:30pm I think is when we went back on stage to play. We were introduced by Justin Smith, and really got into the show. I can say honestly I've never played better (though I had plenty of mistakes). We played until around midnight, and then again around 12:15pm, and didn't stop until 2 or 2:30am. Every muscle in my body ached, and my ears were ringing so bad that 2 hours later when I layed down in bed they were still ringing.
From behind the drumset I can't ever see much of the crowd. I can't see how many people are listening, how many are even there, or how many even are paying attenion. But if you didn't hear it, I tossed a chair at the end of the show to let everyone know that we just threw it down.

I've never put so much into an event. We didn't make money. Hell we basically paid people to come get drunk and listen to us play. We made some money back, we got to rock, and it was fucking awesome...But one thing came very clear from this weekend.

It will take us a long way to the top if we want to rock and roll...

Thanks this week go to: Larry and John M! Herbal Ben Ben from Texas, Nate Dog, Matt's brother Ian, Jessika, Crystal, the White Lightning Boys, Sadie, Sally, and Sammy, and anyone else who came out to check us out!!!

The Basement Party: Where our band starts...

Some might use the word soiled, but after having so much fun we could only call the mud on our gear "character." 12 hours after setting up I finally got home and got to get some sleep. A few hours later Matt woke me up and reminded me that we had to go get our equipment.

The night had been intense, beginning with a race against time as a storm rolled in and we packed our gear, and prayed we could get unpacked before the rain. We arrived at the same time as the beer, and began setting up in a basement that already had a wet coating from the rain the night before. We set up the rug, P.A. drum set, and guitars. We were unsure of the schedule, but no one was there yet, so while Eric dipped out to go get cleaned up, Matt and I went to the store and grabbed some red bull, and water.

The clouds were dark, and as they rolled in, so did the party. People stood outside watching the storm roll in. Clouds formed funnel shapes, but never spun. Wind howled, but never damaged. Lightning lit up the sky in the background, and finally around 11:00p.m. the night kicked off with Elliot Denning playing some acoustic solo songs such as, "I always fuck up in the 4th quarter," and "zombie." If you've never seen him, check him out!

It's at that time we found out we were going on second. I think Matt, Eric were ready to play, but I was honestly exhausted. I had been in Indianapolis all day, and been up since 8am. However as we got up to play, Matt stated, "I guess the party moved upstairs – lucky for them we're loud enough for them to still hear us," and we got to playing 'Don't tell me how to live,' a song that we tossed around many times as being a set opener that worked quite well as the party returned quickly to being downstairs. Followed by 'God only knows' we started the third song, 'Country cruising,' and quickly smelled some herb being smoked in the small dank basement.

From then on I would have thought it would be smooth sailing, but Matt broke a guitar string – as he always does in practice – and then a second guitar string on our backup guitar. As the crowd wanted more we ended up getting an electric guitar (something we are not used to, because Matt has always played with an electric acoustic) we played about 3 more songs to end the set on a high note.
Considering that the 3 of us have only worked together for less than 2 months, it was an amazing accomplishment that made every ounce of work towards it worth it in the 1 hour set that we played. We were followed by 'Methlab Explosion' who sounded pretty decent, but I was unable to actually stay downstairs and watch because we snuck out to go smoke. We returned downstairs to watch Arias' very tight rhymes, and his lead in to Metal in the Microwave.

We had a blast – it was great first show, and we have to thank Nicole, Rachel, and Stephanie, Methlab Explosion, Arias, Metal in the Microwave, Elliot Denning, Jessika, Nate, the crowd, the beer, and the weather for holding off just enough rain to not electrocute us, or the crowd. None of us got home until after 4am, it was one hell of a party.


-[Woozie] Will

The truth is that possessions and status can fill the emptiness of our dwelling and the emptiness of our ego, but do little to fill the emptiness of our soul. -Brian Austin Whitney..