The Lion, The Witch, and The Warzone

Don't ask me, but that was the name of the performances Saturday night.

Sorry for the delay. I was hoping to get some pictures from the shows so I could post them, but Amos has yet to deliver.

This is how it all went down:

Pre-Show

On Friday, I was taking a nice, pleasant little nap in my oh-so comfortable apartment when I got a ring-ting-ting-a-ling from one Zachariah Smith. Apparently some people were at Dylan's and they were just jamming. After some persuasion on Zach's part, I agreed to come down. When I got there, we just kinda hung out and goofed off with various instruments. Soon enough, we all piled in Zach's car and rode to Hinkle's (it's a small town burger place. Open 24 hours. Best coffee ever). Nothing really happened there, but it was good times nonetheless. After Hinkle's we went back to Dylan's and did nothing until about 2 am. Arriving at my house, I stayed up until 4, yet again, doing nothing.

7 am is not the time a person expects to wake up when they go to sleep at 4 am. At least, I don't. The hustle and bustle of my family's morning rituals brought my fairy tale dreams to an abrupt halt, as I had been sleeping on the couch in the living room. Since I wasn't going to Dylan's until 2, I knew something had to be done to pass the time. What did I do? Ate leftover KFC, watched City Slickers, Toy Story 2, and two random shows on the History Channel.

So, it's 2 pm, and I'm at Dylan's. No one is here but me. The bastard went to get drinks. 15 minutes pass and he shows up. Fortunate for him, I was there to help him move crap out the "jam room" to make room for the show that night. We needed as much room as we could get too, since we were expecting about 40 people. With all that done, Zach shows up. Man Pain unites!!!...but we need coffee. Zach and I head over to Hinkle's where we drink our coffee (about 4 cups a piece I believe), and discussed our show. We outlined about 10 songs to play. 9 originals, and one cover.

Back at Dylan's, we begin to actually practice. Think about this for a second: We have two hours to prepare 10 songs for a show, and the last time we actually played together was back in November. Zach had no problem getting his guitar parts back in line, but the lyrics (i.e. My part) was not so simple. Since all of our songs are improv, and we never perform for people, I have no need to memorize the lyrics. This horribly twisted rationale came back to bite me in the metephorical ass on Saturday.

Enter Chris

He shows up, and we learn that his lead guitarist is sick with some rare tropical disease or something. By some weird stroke of luck, there was some dude there who can play a ukulele.

The Show

Chris was the first to play. Him and the ukulele guy busted out a few songs. None of which I'm familiar with, but they did them with a style and class that can only be summed up as "sweet ass." I sat in awe (and borderline intoxication) as the ukulele guy just busted out some riffs to songs he hadn't even practiced. Skill is a word that can't even describe what they laid down that night. While only playing 3 or 4 songs, they definitely made a killer impression on the important folks in the crowd (important folks being defined as those who have an appreciation for fine acoustic-type music).

Man Pain takes the stage. Eric is slighty intoxicated, and Zach is tearing it up on guitar. We never really got around to playing all the songs we intended. I don't even think we played half of them actually. I'll try to relay the ACTUAL set-list as best I can:

Stealing Money From Metallica
Captain Morgan
Western Jaw-Breaker
Down By Texas

Now, for the amount of practice we had, I feel we did pretty good. As I recall, Down by Texas went pretty good; as did Captain Morgan; I think people laughed at Stealing Money From Metallica a few times; and Western Jaw-Breaker got the biggest applause (probably because it's an instrumental, and they didn't have to listen to my dying-cat of a voice). So, overall, what we lacked musically, we made up for comically. Not a bad trade-off I guess.

After our set, Zach and Chris traded places, Jess grabbed her Cowbell, then Chris started the opening lick of Don't Fear the Reaper. I started singing, but there was no cowbell. I needed some cowbell. I requested, in song, for Jess to give me some of that sweet, sweet cowbell. She complied. It was glorious.

Then comes Seventh Story (improper semi-colon use coming up); the trio consisting of Dylan, Smalley, and Jess. While I can't comment on each song individually, I will say that their cover of April 26, 1992 was fucking awesome. I didn't think they could pull it off in a way that would be worthy of a Sublime song, but damn...They nailed it. The bass, the drums, the sweet ass guitar. All of it. Amazing.

I may be biased in saying this, as they're all friends of mine, but Seventh Story has some true potential. I hope they start looking into playing some local gigs around the area. I know they would find a fan base very quickly. For some reason, the town of Madison has this intense craving for grit-your-teeth, bang-your-brain-around-in-your-skull kind of metal, and Seventh Story can deliver. The Sublime song I mentioned is obviously a more mellow song, but they found a way to incorporate Dylan's love for his distortion without fucking the song. I don't know how, but it happened.

Post-Show

Afterwards, a few people (nine) went up to Pizza Hut for some food stuffs. I went for some Mountain Dew, but I was the minority. I rode up there with Belv and we had some good conversation. While we're discussing Belv, I feel I should restate the fact that Mariachi Spirit WILL be played the next time Man Pain performs and Belv-ah is present. I will dedicate it to him, and wink in his direction. It will be awkward.

Wrap-Up

It was fun, and we should do it again with more advanced notification to Zach and myself.