the tonedef blog

Well Saturday August 27 was the 3rd Annual Bish Aid! Bish Aid is an all day music event held at RPM’s in Bridgeville. We were invited to play this year. This was a good time for a good cause.

We were originally slated to go on at 5, but after the cancellation by Soulbent, we were moved to 6. Then with the rain the outdoor stage was closed so everyone went on inside. We showed up just before 5 and Keys was already there and let us know we missed a killer Metallica tribute band, Damage, Inc. The 5 o’clock band was Buc Wyld. They were a cool country band that were a lot of fun to watch. Band Mom showed up just before 6 to make sure we didn’t make fools of ourselves in front of a pretty good crowd. Then it was our turn. We played a pretty good set. We opened hard, slowed it down a bit, threw in a couple of originals, and ended with some Kiss and Ugly Kid Joe.

After us was the ’80s cover/tribute band Armed ‘N Dangerous. These guys were a blast. The did a set chock full of Crue, GNR, and pretty much the rest of Jr/Sr high tape/CD collection. How can you not enjoy a band with stage names like Vince Lee Rose, Tracii Mars and Nikki McKagan. After their set we talked to the guys from Armed ‘N Dangerous and they were totally cool. Nikki (aka John) and Band Mom traded contact info so we could try to hook up some shows with them in the future.

Following A’N D was Vic, Val and Tim from the Guitar Gallery doing their semi-acoustic ’60s Classic Rock thing. Its always fun seein’ the guys from the Gallery. After them was a ridiculously good Pearl Jam tribute band 10. Close your eyes and you didn’t know the difference. Next was Bish’s band Noizy Neighbor. They played a fun mix of music from 99 Red Balloons and Whip It to some Poison to Bowling for Soup.

Ok, the next act was the only reason that our other gig for the day was cancelled. How could we miss a chance to pick on Mike from Tounge ‘N Cheek. We’ve all known Mike for quite a few years. Since the old Big Guns days, and were looking forward to a good laugh of him in spandex for the ’80s glam revival that is Tounge ‘N Cheek. His sixth sense must have kicked in when he was dressing today, because he passed on the spandex. Oh well it was still fun seeing Mike play some old ’80s riffs for the crowd.

By this time it was 1am and I’m getting too old for this shit. We decided to take of after a song or two from the final band of the night Escape. Wish I could have made another hour because from what we did hear…WOW is all I can say.

We hope Bish hit his fund raising goal for Bish Aid ’05 and I know we were all happy to be a part of it.

A side note: Keys was in his glory, He got to meet and talk to Fred K. ( I don’t have any idea how to spell Fred’s last name…sorry) who is the guitar tech for Black Label Society‘s Zakk Wylde. Keys is a huge BLS/Zakk fan, and as luck would have it, Band Mom has known Fred since the ’80s and introduced him to Keys.

Hope to see you all at Nikolazakes this Friday.

Anyone who is or has been in a band has had at least one Spinal Tap moment. Sunday was ours.

Sunday we were supposed to have 2 shows. The first a motorcycle run/ralley from 2-4 and then the Washington County Fair from 8-10. This was a big day for us. The exposure we should get from this can’t be beat two large outdoor shows in front of people we probably wouldn’t be in front of otherwise. The day started out pretty good. We all get to Rocky’s around 11 AM to load up and head out to the show. After a quick stop at the truck stop for coffee, pop and Gatorade, we’re on the road just a little after 11:30 for the hour or so trek to the first gig.

Things are still looking good at this point. Its a great day, maybe a little hot, but clear skies…The perfect day for a bike run. We make good time and enter the park where the ralley is being held right on schedule. Here’s where things start to take a Spinal Tap turn. Originally the location was at one place in the park. We found out earlier in the week the destination had changed to another location. No big deal. So we enter the park looking for the location. We were told there would be signs everywhere pointing to the location since it was going to be such a big event. Well, we didn’t see any signs and started to get a little worried. Were we at the right place? Well, lets just keep looking. We find the place finally, but there are no signs and no sign of any bikes or that any event is taking place here. Okay, maybe we were just a little over anxious and we’re too early.

So I call Band Mom and get the cell number of our only contact with the ralley. Hopefully, he has some answers. Well, it turns out that the ralley has been moved yet again to another location on the other side of the park. To top it off he says there aren’t as many bikes as expected going to be there. (Originally heard 2500 bikes, now more like 25 bikes). Oh and he’s not going to be there…His advice is to ditch and just head back into town for the fair. Advice that we decide to take, since we don’t really know where this new location is, and we don’t know anyone else involved with the event. Luckily this was a freebie gig anyway so its not like we lost anything except some time and gas money.

We all decide to grab some grub and just head back to Rocky’s to relax before the fair. One big positive from not doing the run is now we are not going to be rushed to get to the fair and noone’s going to be worn out from playing in the heat of the day so the fair show should be pretty good.

So after some naps at Rock’s we head back out to the fair. We go on at 8 and can’t setup until 7, but decide we want to be there early incase there are any snags. And that was a good decision.

We show up at the fair grounds about a quarter to 6. We pass the track entrance and head to the bottom midway entrance to ask security where we need to enter the grounds, see we’re the band playing in the show tent this evening. Well he doesn’t know, but tells us to go to the main entrance and that the person there should know. So we go to the main entrance and ask there. Well this person tells us no, we don’t go in up here that would be silly. We need to go down to the track entrance to enter. Okay. Now if you were paying attention so far, we passed right by the track entrance. Why? The sign that said track event entrance ONLY! was our clue, but okay, maybe all event personell need to enter here not just the track events.

So we head back to the track entrance. Working the gate is a former coworker of mine, so we chit-chat briefly and I ask him how we get to the stage. He says he’s not real sure but probably we should head around the track and up over the hill. Okay so we head around the track and see another security person. We introduce our selves again as the band playing the show tent and ask him how we get there. He says well we just need to go up this hill here behind the grand stand and at the bottom of the other side is the show tent. Wow, that sounds easy enough thanks.

What he has failed to mention is that this hill is straight up, only slightly wider that the Rock-de-ville and there are fair folk walkin on it. So we start to climb the hill and try not to run over any of the small children darting around us or their parents who are trying to save them from getting smooshed by the large black pick-up truck, or the 3 other vehicles following us.

As we crest the hill and people are scurrying out of our way as if we were a flame throwing tank, another security guy comes into view. He has a look of awe on his face. He approches and asks us basically what the hell we think we’re doing. We explain that this is the way we were directed in by no less than 4 other security people. He tries hard not to laugh while calling his boss to figure out what to do with 4 vehicles in the middle of a fair with no real idea of where they are going. It turns out we should have been told to enter at “Gate B” which was just past our sencond stop earlier or the main gate. This is where the farmers and such enter the fair grounds and the road circles the barns at the top of the hill and comes straight down with clear access to the show tent…oops.

So now his golf cart driving boss shows up and stares at us in disbelief, with that “How in the world did you get that truck (and 3 other vehicles) this far into the fair on a narrow hill side without smooshing at least 10 people?” He then decides the best thing to do would be for us to back up. I nearly pee myself laughing at this one. We barely were able to not squish people moving forward and now he wants us to move backwards…

Well that turns out not to be as bad as I thought it could be and we manage to get on to another side road and follow the golf cart on a maze trip through food vendors to the stage area. The only problem now is where do we put 4 vehicles and not cause Radio Disney’s van to be forever stuck at the fair. We remedy this by some deft 3 point turns and have Radio disney get behind us so they can leave after their show and we have good access to the stage for set up.

After our Spinal Tap adventures everything else went really well. We got set up in record time and started our set right on time. I think we played a really good set. The people we got to speak to after we played all seemed to enjoy the show.

One highlight of the evening was during our second song, Roadhouse Blues by The Doors, Mike got his boy on stage and Ryan sang the “Let it roll baby roll”. Talk about a Rock Star. After his stint on stage he was given free pizza from one of the vendors that saw him singing.

We had a blast at the fair. We are all looking forward to coming back again next year.

We weren’t supposed to play this weekend, but we got a last minute gig at Christian’s in Finnleyville. Since it was short notice we didn’t have any give aways and we weren’t able to do a lot of promotion for the show.

After some early technical difficulties with the PA everything went okay. I think we are getting better every show. Not much happened at the show this week, but we hope everyone that was there had a good time.

After the show the band, Band Mom, and Bim and Bo decided to get some late night grub, so we hit King’s since it was sorta central to all involved. Now I love King’s, but I don’t think I’ve ever had such lousy service, well except maybe that time the waitress dumped marinara sauce in Band Mom’s purse, but that’s a different story. Our waitress managed to piss off everyone at the table, except Bill, I don’t think anyone outside of Rocky can actually get under Bill’s skin. She did so much stupid annoying crap I don’t want to list it all here.

Here’s a question for anyone reading…If you get bad service do you still tip? My personal feeling is that tips are earned not given. However, I never leave nothing. If you leave nothing, the waiter/waitress will only think you’re a cheap bastard and not realize that it was because of thier service. I like to leave the 3 – 8 cent tip. It shows that I remembered to tip. That I actually dug in my pockets to find money to leave, but that i felt the service was worth less than a 1% tip! Just my take on it. Let me know if you think differently.