We have some odd times here, eh?

I apologize for the absence as of late (KC, much love for picking up in the mean time) but this past weekend has left me a little… confused. Allow me to continue in detail:

-The band scheduled a show on our usual half Sunday, complete with our tried-and-true (-and underpowered) PA system, all of the band members on site, and three separate bar-b-ques cranking out some of the best burnt cuisine this side of the respective nationalities that were working the grills.  With the venue for the show directly outside of the on-site pub we knew that the proper gears would be lubricated in all onlookers and that it might actually turn out to be a pretty damn good one, seeing as how personally I was going to be able to focus on playing the ole skins and letting our proper front man get up there and manipulate the crowd into a right frenzy.

Nope, not this time. Hell, the Huey and I ended up swapping out quite a bit during that show.(I would have embedded the video, but work firewall and all…)

It was actually the band themselves that asked, then insisted, then called me some pretty emasculating names until I finally dragged my happy ass up to the stage and belted out some verses. At first the usual panic attempted to take hold due to the fact that this crowd was not made up of fans of what we do, but of our actual COLLEAGUES and PROJECT MANAGEMENT, but that went away as soon as I got at it. All in all it went great, as we have polished up quite a lot from the last couple of shows that we threw out there as well as humanely fired our temp singer, and we were quite pleased with the end product. -Well, as pleased as one can get with one’s own product, as in hindsight I could have hit this tom at THIS time instead of THAT, my singing voice could be a little more on tone, etc., etc., being the eternal self-critic as all people do that make something. When the show finally wrapped up after an almost 4 hour set, we had a few beers, mopped up the gallons of sweat that we left behind, packed up and parted ways.

Good job Huey (drums, keys, vocals, recording), Rod (bass, drums, vocals,A/V), Neil (lead guitar, bass), Robin (rhythm guitar + keys, vocals, bass, live sound), and the ever amazing Fuzzy (ONLY lead guitar, but most awesome at it).

Quick aside: the reason that we have people that can play different positions is that we are all on different rotations, i.e. we go on time off on different schedules, and sometimes have to fill in for the missing instrument, thus the reason that I now sing and do live sound as well as the drums. Hey, we gotta make it work somehow!

The next day was when we heard what had happened during and around us while we were in a fugue state brought on by attempting to lasso sound into something recognizable and digestible.

-ODD things.

Event One: On our half Sundays off we always have a card game that starts at around the 1800 turn o’ the clock. Usually these games start out, as all do, at moderate, manageable monetary amounts, and seeing as how we play with the local money that slightly resembles the cash out of a monopoly game it all begins somewhat light-hearted. After about an hour goes by and copious amounts of alcohol have been introduced the game gets somewhat ridiculous with the amounts that are thrown out to the pot, followed by the neon sight that states “here be shit talking“ getting turned on, but end of the day the losers walk out the same way as the winners and all ill-will is left behind.

This time not so much, as there was apparently someone at the table that was feeling pretty bullet-proof and decided to express that by harping on the people around until someone called him on it. One thing led to another and the final scene prior to it all breaking up had the locals on one side and the western expats on the other, with security holding the groups apart. The situation was diffused and the parties involved went their separate ways, but it could have gotten REALLY dirty, REALLY fast.

Event two: There is this guy that we all know and love here, and the following Monday we found that he had been let go as a repercussion of events of the previous day, from a completely unrelated event. I would prefer to not go into details as he actually was a friend.

So there you have it; probably the best show that we have done to date, with the guys and I pouring out all we had to make it a real blow out show, with our primary goal being to take the guys that were listening away from the rigors and hardships that is almost every moment in this place to somewhere else for a time, which we felt we accomplished. In the end there were tons of “attaboys” and back slaps, and the large bulk of the cats that were there really enjoyed themselves… but around us on the peripherals there was some chaos goin’ on.

No real end point to this rambling, it just struck me as odd.

(POST EDIT: Helping my friend out, here is his video for those of you who don’t want to follow the linkage love
The video is a we bit long but if you are a music lover, you will appreciate it ~KC)