the tonedef blog

This past Saturday (Jan 27, 2007) was the 2nd Annual Wild Game Feast thrown by everybody’s friend Chuck. Last year was the kick off of this now annual event and if you recall last year’s event, you’ll remember that Shot:30 played and it was a blast.

Chuck is a great guy. He had so much fun with Shot:30 last year that he asked us on the spot to play the 2007 feast. Of course we said yes. Then as you all know Shot:30 self-destructed before the end of 2006. Band Mom got a call from Chuck in September or October to confirm Shot:30…oops. We thought maybe at the time that the currently unnamed project #1 could maybe come up with a few sets of music in time. Well that didn’t happen as we still didn’t have a bass player.

Then we found out in December that not only was this the Wild Game Feast, Chuck was going to tie the knot at this one as well. (Long story short, his mom is real sick and didn’t think she would make it to the original October date that Chuck had set for his wedding). Chuck made sure to invite us all anyway ’cause he’s that kinda guy.

So, Saturday, Band Mom and I headed out to the Ellsworth Fire Hall around 3:30 to check out the festivities. When we got there, Rock was already there so we sat with him. Chuck got JJ to DJ the early portion of the event and booked The Rain Dogs to play starting at 8. The wedding colors were Harley black and orange. A little after 4 Chuck and the bride to be showed up on a hog that he drove right through the door of the hall while JJ spun Born To Be Wild! Chuck was dressed in a tux with tails and as only he could do, the back of the tux jacket was emblazoned with his butcher shop logo and motto in Harley orange.

They had a JOP do the ceremony, and then the food showed up. Unfortunately Band Mom and I couldn’t stay to eat since our babysitter (Pooh) was heading back to her dads between 6 and 7. So we said our good-byes and headed out a little before six. Chuck thanked us for coming and offered us a plate to go (bypassing the line of course) so we could get some grub. We declined, but congratulated Chuck and thanked him for the invite.

I haven’t talked to Rock since, but I’m betting the rest of the evening was a blast. So congrats again Chuck and Stacy!

Saturday night Band Mom threw here annual Christmas party. The usual suspects showed up. It was like a Shot:30 reunion almost. We had 3 singers (Jason, Mike, and Kenn), 2 bass players (Jimmy and Ed), a drummer (Bill), 2 guitarists (Sal and Rock) and of course me. It was cool hangin’ with all those guys for sure.

Plenty of other folks were there along with kids galore. It was a pretty good party. Band Mom laid out a ton of food, and we of course had plenty of beer. We did a little grab bag and threw a ton of darts. Band Mom and I finally got to bed around 4 after the last guests left. Hopefully everybody had a good time. I think they did. Unlike some of our parties, no one seemed to leave mad, no couples broke up and no one cried. I think that means it was a good party.

Saturday was the annual Bish Bash at RPM’s Rock Club. Shot:30 was booked for this all day extraveganza, but we had to back out due to work commitments. But I was still going to try to get there for some of the festivities.

The day started with me cutting the grass. While I was doing this Band Mom was getting Thing 1 & Thing 2 ready. My folks came to get them and took them to the zoo. After they left Band Mom and I got ready and started our day of running.

Our first stop was the Guitar Gallery to drop off a contract to Vic since his band Sugar Cane will be playing Oktoberfest of which Band Mom is the entertainment coordinator. We ended up hanging out for a bit chatting with Vic and Taylor.

After that stop we headed down to Kutters Edge so Band Mom could pick up some posters for the Bike Run for Oktoberfest. Of course we hung around there for a while and chatted with Kathleen.

By now it was time to get some grub so we dropped one of the posters off to Jay’s Sports Bar and had our dinner there.

After we were done eating we headed up to RPM’s. The days festivities started at 3 (they would have started at 2 had we still been playing), and we got there a little before 6. Unfortunately that meant we missed a couple of bands. The show was opened by our good friends Lady & The Tramps and we also missed the second act Strangeway.

We showed up in time to see the very end of Into The Arena who I’m upset we missed, because what we did see was pretty killer.

After that was the Pearl Jam tribute band Ten. If you’re a Pearl Jam fan you need to get out and check these guys out. They put on a killer show.

The seven o’clock band was Wicked Earth an energetic and entertaining original rock band from the area.

At 8 we we’re entertained by country band Buc Wyld. We met these guys last year at Bish Bask 2k5 and they are a really cool bunch of guys. They also will be playing at Oktoberfest this year. The guitar player was new, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew him. By the end of their set it finally hit me. He used to be the guitar player for Blacksmith who Shot:30 did a couple of shows with last year.

9 o’clock we were back outside to check out Turn. They brought a pretty cool original sound to the evening.

The rest of the night was inside and did not dissapoint. The 10 o’clock band was Bish’s bandNoizy Neighbor The last time I saw these guys was when Lady &amp The Tramps and Shot:30 opened for them at RPM’s back in April. Since then the band line up has changed…FOR THE BETTER. They not only changed their line-up, but they changed their song list as well. They did an awesome job. I can’t wait to run sound for them at Oktoberfest. Its always good to see Bish live and kickin’!

The 10 o’clock band was our friends Tension. Their hour of metal was definitely a good time. They added a couple of cool tunes since the last time I’ve seen these guys.

The final band of the night was Shatterpak. I’ve never seen these guys before, but I will definitely be seeing them again. They just crushed.

Band Mom was getting tired and hungry so we didn’t stay for all of Shatterpak‘s set. We headed out to get some late night grub instead.

All in all Bish put on another great Bish Bash for 2K6. I personally can’t wait to see what he puts together for 2K7!

Saturday we had some runnin’ round to do. First we had to go get Thing 1 & Thing 2 from my parents. After that we headed down to Bill’s to unload the equipment from last night. We sat around for a little bit BSing to Bill. After that we made a quick stop at Kutters Edge to drop off a CD I had promised Keith.

Finally we headed up to Band Mom’s Mom’s. We took Band Mom’s Mom to do some grocery shopping. After shopping we took her groceries home and went to Eat N’ Park for some dinner. (I love the Whale of a Cod sandwich!) Then we dropped Band Mom’s Mom off and headed home.

When we got home the kids headed outside to play and Band Mom took a nap. After Band Mom woke up, I headed next door to play some cards with Mr. P and Pap. After 3 hours of play I decided it was time for me to head home (besides 7 card stud was not treating me very well). So I decided I was going all in on the next hand. I put $159 in chips in the pot. Mr. P had been on a role so I figured he would cover the bet and take my stack so I could go home. Well he did cover, and surprisingly so did Pap. Turns out I won the hand with two pair A’s over Q’s. Well I decided it was time to go anyway so I just put it all in the pot for Mr. P and Pap to battle over. I found out the next day that they ended up playing for another hour or two before Me. P finally won the game.

Next time I think we’re actually gonna pull out the change jars and play some nickel and dime stuff instead of just for fun chip play. If we do that I can’t do 7 card stud. I’d rather play some Hold ‘Em or something. But we’ll see.

Friday night we played Nicolozake’s. Miss H was supposed to go to the show with Band Mom and I, but she had a migrane and had to bow out. So Band Mom and I headed to Bill’s to load up our van with the equipment. After we loaded up we headed out to the show. We got there a minute or two after Rock and Kenn and started getting things unloaded. I think Keyz sat at the top of the hill with some binoculars, because somehow he managed to pull up as Kenn and I were pulling the very last piece of equipment out of my van.

We were set up in plenty of time and were ready to start when the first technical difficulty hit. I wasn’t getting any sound from the front monitors. After trying a number of different things, we narrowed it down to the speaker cable so quick got that changed. Then after the first song, I realized that Rock’s mic wasn’t working. Turns out he had a bad mic cable. After that though the show went on smooth sailing. We sounded really good. We had a decent crowd all night.

Between second and third sets a couple of Keyz’s buddies got up and played a few songs. That was a cool distraction for twenty minutes. We closed out the night and ended at 2. We had like the fastets break down ever I think. We were loaded and out of Nicolozakes by 3 on the nose. That never happens. Band Mom was lightin’ fires under people to get them moving.

On the way home I had to drive Rock’s truck and Band Mom had to go alone. We followed her home (fast/slow/fast/slow…) and then I headed over to Rock’s. Rock, Kenn and I unloaded the little bit that was in the truck and then Kenn took me home.

Somehow (its now after 4 mind you) Bill, April and Kenn still had enough energy to go to Eat N Park for some breakfast…Band Mom and I opted for staring at the inside of our eyelids.

This past Saturday Shot:30 was booked for a private party. Early Saturday was spent doing little to nothing. Aroun 4 o’clock I took Thing 1 & Thing 2 over to my folks for the evening. When I got back I waited for Band Mom to finish getting ready and then we headed over to Rock’s to load up some gear and head to the party.

After we (me, Rock, Kenn, Bill, Band Mom and April) finished loading Bill dropped his bomb. Bill has decided that he is going to quit Shot:30. He’s going to finish out all of our existing bookings through October, but after that he is going to leave.

So after Bill‘s bomb, we headed out to the party. This wasn’t some little rinky dink back yard bar-b-q. This was on a farm and there was easily a couple hundred people their. They had set up a goose-neck trailer for us as a stage with a tent covering it (it threatened to rain all night, but never actually did!) We got set up and then had to wait for Keyz. Keyz had to work all day and then come in from Ohio so we weren’t expecting him to be there in to much of a hurry. While we waited we all grabbed some grub and drink and enjoyed the party for a litte bit. Keyz showed up a little after 7 and got his gear set up and tuned.

We played a cool two sets for the party goers. Since we weren’t asked to turn down or to leave I guess everyone was enjoying the background music from a live band. It was actually a pretty fun show considering Bill‘s news before hand. During our second set Kenn was having a little trouble. I think he was having an alergic reaction to the hay and what not. We finished our second set and since it was already pushing 11 we decided to call it a night.

After breaking everything down and getting packed up, Keyz headed home and so did Kenn. Rock decided to stay at the party for a little. Band Mom and Bill were hungry, so the 4 of us headed to Eat ‘N’ Park for the midnight buffet.

Its sad that Bill has decided to leave Shot:30, but I have a feeling we’ll still be seeing him around and working together in the future…

Got up Saturday and got a quick bite to eat. Got dressed and headed outside to cut the grass. I wanted to get it done before the teperature got too high (it hit like 95 Saturday). After that I got a bath and spent the rest of the day getting things on my new computer installed and organized.

We were supposed to have practice tonight and Rock had also invited some people over for an infomral gathering. Well, Bill ended up having to help his sister move so was not going to be able to make practice. When Keyz heard this he decided that nothing would be accomplished at practice so he was going to save the gas money and opt out of practice. Around 7:30/8 o’clock I headed over to Rock’s anyway for a few beers and to see who showed up. Well it wasn’t much of a party. It ended up being me, Rock, Kenn, Don (of Ruff Creek) and his wife Pandora. We sat around for a while telling war stories, most of which dated back to the Big Guns (Don’s old band) and Initial Contact (a band I ran sound for that had the Wheeler bros., Sal (former Shot:30), Santi, and Zenner (currently with Tension)) era.

Don brought some stuff that Ruff Creek has been working on in the studio for us to hear. The stuff sounds pretty good and it looks like there may be a full lenght Ruff Creek album coming out pretty soon!

Well around 11:30 I decided I was going to head home. On the way home I got a call from Bill that he was done. He wanted to do something, so asked if I would like to go bowling. After asking Band Mom for permission, I headed to J-Lanes to meet Bill for some bowling action. After getting my ass handed to me in 4 out of 5 games, I figured it was about that time.

I got home around 1:30/2 and found out Band Mom and I would be spending another night on the futon, since Thing 1 and Thing 2 had taken over our bed. (At 2 am you really don’t want to move them, cause they’ll wake up and be up for hours.)

Every year around this time, Shot:30 plays a show and Band Mom organizes a kick ass party to celebrate my birthday and Rock’s as well. This year was no exception. We played Jay’s Sports Bar in Canonsburg on Saturday night. Band Mom set up a kill spread of food with Jay’s. Dinner started at 6:30…We had chicken with some kinda dijon sauce, linguini salad, tossed salad, green beens almondine and 2 kinds of wings, and of course a bunch of Band Mom’s near-world-famous cupcakes. I want to thank everyone that came for dinner and escpecially thank all of those that gave me a card or a gift. You all went way overboard this year! It was totally unnecessary, but much appreciated! I got some crazy gifts from people I would never have expected (Councilman Matt and Dennis are one good example). Again thanks bunches for all the birthday wishes.

The band started a little after 9:30…Even more people showed up after the dinner. Band Mom invited the Canonsburg Chamber board members (she’s the VP), there was friends and family for Rock and I, some old friends who haven’t been out to see us in a while, and a surprise that I will talk about in a little bit.

After we got rollin’ things went really well. Band Mom set up our set list for this show since she was incharge of the guest list and knew who would probably be there. She set up a 1st and 2nd set that would cater to the folks that we knew were going to show up while not losing anyone else. It was a really mixed set with some classic, new, heavy, slow, fast, dance and even country thrown in for good measure. We pulled out some stuff that we haven’t played for a long time for that reason. Right off the bat 4 songs into set one was a good example. We did Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy by Big & Rich. We haven’t done that song since the departure of Mike, mainly because it was a two vocal song that Mike and I performed. Well I pulled it off solo (that is with some backing help from Kel!) and it was a ton of fun.

Between 1st and 2nd sets was the surprise I had mentioned earlier. All of the members of Kenn’s old band Altered State showed up and played a couple of songs for us…It was like they had been playing together for the past two years. The gave us a little L.A. Woman/5 to 1 medly and at my request, an original that was my favorite when the were together called In The Mirror. It was really good to see all those guys again. And thanks for playing the birthday boys request!

2nd set was another variety set with a bunch of neet stuff going on, and as usual our third set was a little harder. We had dancers and singers helping us out all night. I think my dad had a good time…He was a dancin’ fool all night! During Word Up! Kathleen treated us to some poppin’ and a little robot action on the dance floor so I responded in kind from the stage. Late in third set Kathleen cracked me up while I was singin’ It’s So Easy by standing in the back and doing the Axl Rose dance. You know the one…The snake like move that Axl was so well known for.

Any way I hope everyone that came out to Jay’s had as much fun as I did! And if you missed it too bad…It was a fun one. Again I want to thank everyone for coming and an extra thanks to all who brought me goodies. (Band Mom’s friends are the coolest…)

Saturday was pretty laid back…I got back from the Nicolozake’s after 4:30, and went straight to bed. A little after 9 I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, even though Band Mom was nice and said I should head back to bed for a little bit. I spent the morning watching some World Cup. My folks came over around 1 or 2 and got Thing 1 & Thing 2 and took them to the pool for the day. Band Mom, Pooh, and I headed up to Band Mom’s Mom’s.

We had to drop off her car to get inspected. When we dropped it off, the guy thought Band Mom was goofy, because she told him the car (a 2000 Prism) only had 5000 miles on it. He had to come out and confirm that. Well didn’t he feel silly. Band Mom’s Mom doesn’t drive all that much. He immediatly asked if she wanted to sell it

While they were inspecting it, we headed over to the mall and grabbed some grub. After we ate Band Mom and Pooh wanted to do a little clothes shopping. Nobody found anything, except some sunglasses for Band Mom. We still had time to kill, so we headed accross the street to Half Price Books. They didn’t have anything good form me, but Pooh ended up with 3 new CDs.

We picked up the car, and took Band Mom’s Mom home. Band Mom, Pooh and I then headed home. Band Mom decided she would give me some of my Father’s Day presents early since I could kill some time with one of them for the evening. So I got some new tools (not the thing I could use to kill some time!) Now for those that know me, you know I am not the handiest around the house. In fact I am often refered to as the Anti-Bob Villa. I think there are some prophecies and books written about me. Granted they are not as famous as the whole Christ/Anti-Christ prophesies, but they are still out there if you look hard enough. The real problem was when I do actually need to tool for something, the exact one I need is always missing, so it was time for a new set in a handy little tool kit so I had anything I could possibly need. Band Mom actually found these cool sets on sale at Target and got me 2 (One called the Home kit and one called the Car kit)

Anyway, the other gift was Season 1 of Lost on DVD. Now this is a good way to kill some time. I immediatly popped it in and started watching. Sometime during the first disc Things 1 & 2 came home. After they went to bed I was still watching. I made it halfway through disc 2 before I finally was too tired to watch anymore and headed to bed.

Friday night we played Nicolozake’s. The show started out a little slow, but picked up by the end of the night. The Band got to meet Keyz’s parents though. That was cool that they came out to check out the first set.

This was the first show with Kenn that we needed to do a 3 set night. We pulled it off. We added a bunch of songs at the last practice. Most came off well, a few still need work. One cool thing is I get to sing one of my favorite songs now, G’N'R’s It’s So Easy! What a fun little song. Also completely unplanned, we decided to try something new with Killing In The Name Of…Kenn and I both sang it basically trading lines and it came off pretty cool.

Well we proved to ourselves that we have enought material to play all night…Now its time to start adding new covers and originals to our master list. So be sure to check us out over the next few months, because every show will probably introduce something new…(at least new for us)

Thanks to all those that came out (all be it a little late) to Nicolozake’s. We always have fun there, and this time was no different.

Our next show is July 8 at Jay’s at Southpoint. This should be fun. Its the annual Tony & Rock (& sometimes Sal) birthday party. Its our first time at Jay’s so come out and show your support so it wont be our last time at Jay’s!