A few months ago, after this show was booked, we heard a story from our pal Slater, of white wrench conservatory and Two Room Honeymoon fame, about the Inferno, the goth bar we were playing on this night, this night of our first ever mini-tour with Rev. Ever. Basically, the point of the story was that upon visiting the bar, Slater and his pal made a solemn vow and wrote a contract on a napkin, which essentially said, "We, Slater and [Slater's friend], being of sound mind and body, do solemnly swear to never again make fun of Club Anything." (Club Anything, aka Club ? aka Club Interrobang, aka Club Huh, aka Club Riddler, etc. is the local Milwaukee goth bar, which, well, is sort of a running joke in these parts for myriad reasons, including it being A GOTH BAR.) So we were prepared for GOTHIC MADNESS as we pulled up to the club.
Unfortunately, no such luck. Apparently they all know that on one Thursday night per month, our buddy Jake Crustacean books bands he digs and plays music he likes, so they run for the hills. So with the exception of a couple girls in back of the bar who inexplicably kept yelling at the bands to play quieter and turn it down, most of the 30-40 people in attendance were indie rockers and bands filled with indie rockers. Amongst the pluses: my little brother Kris, aka Skippy Awkward (yes, it's not a palindrome. Inside joke); old pal, ex-echo-static drummer and fill-in Brainerd drummer Chad Ovshak; and other old pal Eric Amble, who wanted to evaluate the new guy. Solid folk, all.
Openers Road Agent Spin played a competent set of catchy power-pop, the highlight of which was a rippin' cover of Thin Lizzy's "Cowboy Song." Brainerd headlined and totally fucking tore the roof off the sucker with loud as fuck Unsane-meets-Killdozer nastiness. And our set? Went over great, but it was "eh," i thought. Well, no, not "eh"--better than that, but we had some issues, notably Yale needing to borrow one of the Rev's guitars at the last monute as he hadn't realized that he messed up both his guitar's jacks in Minneapolis last weekend. So his guitar tone was a little weird, which threw me off. No biggie, really, and we still played well. Even if the ladies in the back thought we were too loud and one of the friends that Kris brought with him wasn't feeling it. Heh.
Instead of taking cash from the door as payment, we took what we made ($31!) and invested in a couple copies of Hot Nuggets! for the tour, via Jake. A pretty smart idea, as those six copies will gross over $60 by the time we get them sold.
Friday June 1st was a "day off" on the mini-tour (ha!) as we had been expecting the Superstarcastival to take place on this day instead of Saturday. Once that got shifted around, we really had no options for Friday night except for playing a quickie in Milwaukee, and frankly, we're playing too much in the town this summer as it is. So we rested up on Friday and awaited departure for Chicago Saturday.
