Proletariat 08 April Recap

Well fuck, this recap is a bit belated but life’s been pretty crazy. But I’m finally saying “fuck it”. My job sucks ass and I’d rather blog than waste time working for the man. Fuck Corporate America. Fuck Wall Street. Fuck it all. I’d rather talk about music than do real work for my shitty underpaid undervalued Kafka-esque turd of a job at a shitty music company. So without further adieu let go back to April 8^th for the last Linus Pauling Quartet show….

One thing I’ve come to really love is a bill with four bands. It causes untold confusion and manic running around to get everyone to stay on time and get their asses in gear. Like Ted calling me at 8pm asking if we have turntables for him. I love Ted but my brain almost exploded. I mean I play in a moronic Texas Psych Rock outfit; Tony Iommi is the pinnacle of evolution in terms of our musicianship. What the hell would I be doing with a DJ set-up? Luckily, his back-up comes through with a set-up. But that was the least of my concerns. Clinton was ill on Thursday so we had to rehearse on Saturday before the show. This meant that I, had to run to the studio, rehearse, get back home shower and assemble my film projection stuff. So instead of me getting there at 7 or 8 pm it was almost 9pm – meaning I was fucked for time. So I ran around setting-up the projectors, getting Ted on stage, getting the Born Liars to set up around him, battling the film projector (which was squealing like a pig since I misthreaded the film in my haste), and getting the Kinky Friedman Table running. I managed to shoot some photos and Video of Ted but I was hardly able to really listen to his set

By the time the Born Liars performed, things had clamed down. The squealing film mishap, had made me give up on playing films for the other bands and I also got things back on track after pretty much beating Ted on the head to stop (he was waiting for the Jukebox to kick in while the club was waiting for him to stop) and manically hearding the Born Liars from the bar. Once they were on, things started looking up – we were pretty much on schedule and they played a really solid set of garage rock with the only misstep being a Replacements cover (Goddamn Job) which suffered from the fact that they were too well rehearsed. The best part of the show was Steven’s friends who came dressed like either General McArthur or Hunter S Thompson. I don’t know who they were but they definitely added some spontaneity to the scene there. One other thing about Born Liars is the fact that while the band moves constantly the drummer is like this unmoving statue. I swear I took a million shots and hardly kept any because everyone was out of focus from moving – all except the drummer of course, who was always sharply in focus. It was totally freaky.

Georgia’s Horse was the big act of the night. I’m not sure if they have played out as a band in a while but they obviously had their own crowd who were really thrilled to see them play. Now, mind you I had only heard Theresa’s demos and acoustic sets so when they played as a power trio I was completely blown away. Props have to go to Brad. The guy was this massive drummer that just pummeled you. I kept wanting to shout “Moby Dick! YYZ!” When I found out he had a double kick it all made sense. Midway through their set the Linus curse though stuck GH when Tizianos bass string broke. Steve and I rushed the stage like a Nascar race team. I brought out the tools and Steve slapped on the string. Boom! You’re done! Now Rock! The only downside is that they ran a bit long and I had to tell them to end their set (dropping two songs). Still, all around it was a great set from a great band that should easily get a huge following in Houston should they play out a bit more.

Finally, in a frenzy of activity, we set our shit up and went into our set. Now since I was too dumb to edit the second reel of films together I had to simply play one film on the second projector and rewind it when it ended. Steve recruited his studio intern for the task. As I expected, about 30 seconds after the film ends, I see this fro bounce across the room towards the projector. Boing! Boing! Boing! Man, I wish I’d had a big Buzzer.

(Bzzzz!)
OOH, that didn’t look good Fred!
Nope Todd, not even close. Let’s Watch!
(boing boing boing boing)
OK Let’s watch that again but in slow motion.
(boiiiiiing boiiing boiiiiing)

But despite that screw up, and the screen falling down on us (Duct tape why have you forsaken me!) we burned through our set like a bunch of demons. I don’t know how we sounded but I doubt you could say we were lacking energy. If anything the manic pace of the four band line-up definitely kept us awake and alert. The only big musical mistake came during 40 Oz.. Charlie did his Gorilla shadow puppet and I totally lost it. If there is one thing that just makes me pee my pants with laughter its that goddamn gorilla shadow puppet and sure enough when Charlie did it not only did I break out laughing but I also forgot entirely what I was supposed to play. I mean totally! Curse you Gorilla shadow puppet! Curse you and all your kind!

Uh, what was I saying again? Oh yeah. I think this just goes to prove that shorter Linus is better Linus. We had scheduled a 47 minute set but since we had to cut Tapatia it was more like 40 minutes. You know. Nobody complained and we weren’t beat from playing a 90 minute LP4 marathon. So go figure.

Oh and one last thing the sound (well, I can’t speak for our sound but the rest of the bands’ sound) was awesome. The soundman did a great job. While Rudz is still our home the Proletariat is definitely a place we need to which we need to return. And return we shall.