Crash Coarse 4th of July 2006 party with the Uprising, Crash Coarse at the Doll Hut on July 19, and 26 with Punk As a Doornail, Dirty Mother Fuckers, and a cool surf band - will get the name soon. Also the Misanthropes (featuring Irritations members) playing 2 songs in Mesa AZ. during a set break of a "classic rock" cover band- this was July 22, 2006.
First of all the party on the 4th was in Laguna, nearby where we'd played with Uprising the year before, and it was just as cool of a party. The streets were packed with nearly nude women- it was visually stimulating for our set. We also just played the Doll Hut twice with DMF- last week was with Punk As A Doornail, who we'd played with back in 2000 at my first show with Crashcoarse (at the time we were going under "Codename Hardhat" for reasons of band politics). They consist of a drummer, and a guitar/skateboard player- literally, the skateboard has strings, a bridge, and pickups, and is played with a bottle for a slide. Back in 2000, they had a vocalist who ran around with a bullhorn, this time Keith Irish handled all lead vocals, and in addition also sported a breifcase with a series of strings and pickups inside. DMF were balls out hardcore and rocked. We tried to do different sets for the most part last week and this week so we wouldn't be repeating too many songs. While we might have played certain things better or tighter this past night, the crowd and energy were better the first night. We pulled out the rarely played "Booger Snot" last night. I also introduced the 40 second "Bastard" as being a song that was about as long as my wiener. The cheesy shit people say onstage to get a laugh... Last night we also played with a really good surf band we often run into practicing at Sound Arena, and unfortunately I didn't get their name as I and my wife had to get out fairly early, but they were great. Stopped at Vons on the way home to get some salami, trail mix and an "Arrogant Bastard" beer. I didn't mix them together if that's what you're thinking.
In a different category of shows, Jonas and I drove to Mesa, AZ to visit Tom and his wife Jen at their place, and to play a set at a nearby restaurant/bar/hangout. Tom's been doing an acoustic project with another guitarist named Paul, so before our show, we got out our acoustics and jammed some new songs of theirs, and a couple older Irritations songs. They've done a few shows as an acoustic duo, and have practiced with a drummer out there, but I think (and I could be wrong) that this was the first Misanthropes set of a full rock band lineup. Originally the classic rock bar band had told Tom we had a 30 minute set, which somehow metamorphosized into 3 songs, then2 songs. We played long songs as a result. Both Tom and Paul played electric/acoustic guitars that were for some reason plugged into the PA so I couldn't hear Jack diddley Dick up there, I had to watch them from behind the drums. Listening to the tape later, it sounded pretty good except for the fact the guitars and bass were not mixed loud enough. What can you do. Most of the 12 minute set (we did a new songs "Lights Out", and a 7 minute jam on "Gloria") sounded really good none the less, and at most of the time sounded basically like a blues-punk band only with clean acoustic guitars instead of distorted electrics. Since the cover band had Santana and Stevie Ray Vaughn songs to cover that obviously nobody has ever heard before, we did our bit, got off, and proceeded to sell a couple of CDs. They did throw in some cool covers of the Tubes and QOTSA (guess which songs they did and win a free DVD). Went back to Tom's pad and drank some beer. Next morning, it was so fuckin' hot, we found that Phoenix was having record temperatures of 116 degrees Fahrenheit (for all you Canadians and Europeans who are reading this, I don't know what it is in Celsius- there's a math formula that's fairly easy to find on the internet, so please do that). We ended up doing some recording in the front room. Go to either http://www.myspace.com/theirritations or http://www.myspace.com/circlecityseven to hear the cover of "I Wanna Be Loved" by the Heartbreakers (I'm not aware of a Misanthropes website yet- I'll link to it when it's up). After we recorded a bit, I showered, guzzled more Gatorade (I can't seem to get enough of the stuff lately), and headed back toward California, accidentally leaving behind some killer sandwiches that we found ourselves missing later on. I ended up putting a short DVD of the trip out there, plus the gig footage, some recording footage, and lots of shots of Tom and Jen's cats.