One important piece of information needs to be remembered during the recap of our time in Lansing this time out:
Tom and Jim from Red Swan built a still.
This is what sludgy doom balladeers in central Michigan do when they are not doing rock and roll--they distill their own hooch from whatever occurs to them on that given day. Upon our arrival, we were given some "Apple Jack" to sample--distilled 100-proof apple liquor. It was a little vinegary and a whole lot tasty, y'all (and as i am writing this, it's been over a week since i drank it and i can still see, so i think they know what they're doing). Tom at one point admitted to a desire to distill an entire Ceasar salad. I expect a full report when this happens.
When our bands arrived at Mac's there was an all-ages show wrapping up which featured the following bands (see if you can guess the prevailing genre of the musical acts at this show): Bloodlined Calligraphy, Dagon, Straight Line Stitch, Know Lyfe, and Among the Atrocities. If you're picturing a scenario where we're standing outside the club as inside we hear chugg-ch-chugg-a-chugg RRRRROOOOWWWWRRR wreee-nee-nee-nee-neener CHUGG, you're pretty much spot on. Once the show ended, i watched the kids haul their fancy road cases and fancy equipment out of the venue as i waited to load in my beat-to-shit duct-tape-covered drumset into the venue. I watched these kids, all decked out in their black jeans and black hair and black black black things, and i looked at my friends and myself--me with my salt-and-peppered hair; The Wizard and Tom with their male pattern baldness; Yale with his Sconni dude paunch, and i imagined these kids staring at us and being convinced that we were waiting to get on stage to play CCR and ZZ Top covers all night. And while that would be fun, that's not exactly what we had in mind for the club.
What we did have in mind was the usual hot rock, which was delivered despite a pretty nasty derailment during "Defenestrate Me" that wasn't able to get back on track because vocals really couldn't be heard on stage. There was some nasty bass feedback ringing through the monitor mix that kept us from really hearing each other, but we trudged through like troopers to positive feedback (heh) from the small but attentive audience. And Red Swan KILLED it. Duh. Those guys need to play out of town more often and share the awesome with the rest of the Midwest at least.
Let's pause for a moment to check in on our resident rookie and see how he's been handling his first major multi-day HiFi road trip. As i alluded in the previous entry, Chicago saw our Rev.Ever get loaded up on the whiskey and beers and pass out but good in the most contorted of ways on Zak Starcastic's floor. When we awoke on Monday morning after Sunday's Lansing show and subsequent Apple Jack consumption, i noticed a cut on the Rev's forehead.
"Um, dude? Where did that come from?"
"Uh, i don't know! Um...OH! I remember! Tom took me downstairs to the basement to show me where they keep their gear, and i bashed my head on the ceiling going down the stairs, i think."
Remembering that Tom went to bed before any of us, i looked over at Tom and asked, "um, Tom? Did you take him down to the basement last night?"
Tom looked at us quizzically. "No......"
It was eventually decided that Jesus himself must have come to the Rev in a vision that night and led him into the basement in order to, well, crack him on the head, i guess. Bad Jesus. Naughty Jesus. But maybe he was trying to tell Rev.Ever something? We'll never know, but we do know that the Rev was definitely in the basement at some point, because he accurately described it to Tom.
After a quick Mexican lunch and a stop at a music store for supplies (as we entered the store, someone asked us which one of us was the drummer, to which Ever motioned at me and answered, "this guy." Another rookie mistake! I had to then explain to him why no one in the band is ever allowed to identify me as "the drummer" in a strange music store ever again), we were off for Bloomington. Thanks again, Lansing.
