First Annual USNDM Day Recap!

Arrived in New Brunswick around 3pm, swung by Casa De Doktor to pickup the Bud Dry, then over to the House of Boring for our bi-monthly band practice. Ordered Ta-Ta's for a little NB comfort food ("Hey Bud...") and then headed over to the show.

The Junkyard Palace is located conveniently a block away from Patrick's, which I ducked into periodically throughout the night, which was especially comforting during the Brazilian jug and washboard guitar band, or whatever the fuck that turned out to be.

After "tuning up" and getting the mic situation resolved, we played. The general consensus was that it was pretty alright, kids pitted pretty hard at various times which was awesome. The set list was as follows:

Jammin' With The Fellas/Vocal Test*
Me, Jack Daniels And Jim Beam
Manhole Inspector
Girl In The Gingham Dress
I'm Packin'
We Gotta Know** (cocktease)/Homo-Sexual***
Texas On A Saturday Night****
Honkeytonky 2000

*Vocal Test originally performed by Integrity
**We Gotta Know (cocktease intro) originally performed by the Cro-Mags
***Homo-Sexual originally performed by the Angry Samoans
****lyrics by Tex Hooper

We played way better than the first show, and I remember AT LEAST 75% of the set, and the missing 25% can be attributed to my generally horrible memory rather than blacking out like the first show. And I was able to show up to work Monday without any new cuts, black eyes, or general damage. Which is a plus, I suppose, despite the fact that I feel like I wasted a weekend.

We also moved a lot of units, as they say in the biz. Though I should clarify, the demo's were free and we only had like 20 or 30 of them. But regardless, I'm pretty happy that people were at least interested enough to take free shit. AND I didn't find a single one thrown on the ground after the show.

Only major bummer was I was unable to follow through on the promises of Roulette and Blackjack, but there just wasn't room anywhere to set up either. That can be credited to the place being PACKED, which is awesome. Seriously, tons of credit to Amit for getting an awesome show together and running it well, and also to whoever lives there. But next time I PROMISE there will be plenty of gambling for all.

Scratch that: OTHER only major bummer was our 6th man not being present. Bud Dry Man had family stuff to attend to, so he couldn't be there. So if we weren't as good as we should have been or could have been, it can be attributed to the fact that we were down a man, so come check us out next time as a full six piece. Doktor DID come through with the Bud Dry though, so he retains his title without any huge losses. We'll have to bump our next re-up to three 30 racks though, as the two we had were gone by the end of our set.

And further apologies to anyone (?) who cared that we were going to have those Munson shirts, they didn't get finished in time, though that actually wasn't our fault for once. We'll have them for the next time.

Mother Night were awesome. I'm not sure that I've ever actually said this before "publicly" but I'd gotten their demo for review years ago when I did reviews for Bystander Fanzine, and I wasn't that into it. And then I hadn't heard anything from them since, so when I found out I was going to be living with a bunch of them in New Brunswick last year, I was sort of like "oh man, this is going to be one of those things where I have to pretend to like my roomates' band so it's not awkward." Then they played some show I was at @75 Louis and I was shocked because they were awesome, a hundred times better than I remembered from the demo. I remember telling Steve how pumped I was that not only did they not suck, but that they ruled. I've probably seen them a dozen plus times since then, and this show was easily one of the best. Someone on the Jersey board said something along the lines of that one of the reasons they rule so much live is that EVERY dude in the band just annihilates his instrument, and it's rare you see a band where all of the members are just super intense, and not in the "angry face for the cameraz" way, in the genuinely intense way.

Uh, so yeah, they were great.

Celebrity Murders were next, and they've been one of my favorite bands since I got the demo at some show in Albany a couple years ago. The demo was good and all, but Time To Kill Space just blew it out of the water. A totally punishing record from the second the sound clip at the beginning of Proxy Violence ends. I've seen them a bunch of times but they always sound best in smaller spaces where they're loud enough to just fill the room and totally obliterate. They played a few new songs that sounded awesome too, so hopefully whatever those songs are from comes out soon.

The aforementioned Brazilian band played next, and I spent their set at Patrick's. The best description of their set was "They tuned for 30 minutes and then Staring Problem played." So I feel pretty confident I made the right choice.

Embarrassingly enough I've slept on Staring Problem for way too long, until a week ago friday when I made a last minute decision to head down to the Asbury Lanes for their record release show. And thank fucking god I did go, because they were just totally awesome that night. A great mix of sorta 90's styled breakdowns with that early 80's California guitar sound that a lot of Jersey Shore bands seem to have. At least to my non-heathen-state ears. They were great again Sunday, and anyone who hasn't picked up their new LP "You'll Always Be Sick" definitely should.

Pulling Teeth played last, and while they were sweet, it wasn't the best I've seen them. The last time they played NB was better, in my humble opinion. But it could be partially due to the fact that I was sorta spent by the time they played. And besides, Pulling Teeth at 75% awesome are still better than most bands going. Pissed that I forgot AGAIN to buy the stupid LP, so now I'll probably just order it and kick myself for having to pay shipping.

Great show though, one of the most fun I've ever been too much less one I've ever played, with any band I've been in. Thanks to everyone who came and everyone who played.

I have a few pictures of our set I'm going to put up when I get home, but this dude took some awesome pictures of Mother Night, Staring Problem, Celebrity Murders and Pulling Teeth that can be found HERE.