never knows best

Going to do my best to go through this chronologically in my head. I want to both describe the events and give you a rough idea of why I agreed to do them, and in a larger picture, make music in the first place.

Last year I attended the first NerdRage. I didn't do it for any real affinity of the genre, but rather to shoot the shit with Frontalot, as I tend to do about twice a year when he rolls through. I did run into some fans of mine, as tends to happen at some of the nerdcore shows, mostly because of the orange hat.

Now, people have been wondering when I would be playing shows for awhile now. Seems like every year at least one person asks if I'm going to Nerdapalooza, and my answer is always along the same lines: if I get invited to play, then I'd probably spend the (large) sum of money to go down and perform. Understand that I don't get out much due to my back injury, and I've never been terribly keen on championing my own music to anybody besides myself.

So fast forward to March of this year, and the same fan who I had talked with at the last NerdRage, had been in contact with Zilla, who runs the show, in an attempt to get me on the bill. So I tell him that if they really want to book me, then I'd play my first show. A little nerve-wracking, but I'll manage. Fast-forward to April and Zilla gets a hold of me himself and I originally agree on about 13 minutes, which would have been 4 songs. I'm not trying to push the limits of what my back and/or lungs can handle. Lets face it, my vocal chords are out of shape.

So begins the process of digging up the original beats, layering back in the hooks, and rehearsal day after day. I may be lazy, but I take music and performance very seriously. It doesn't matter if it's 1 person, or 100, I'm going to put out the same amount of energy. While I don't put a great deal of value in the quality of what I've produced up to this point, I'll be damned if it doesn't get delivered with the proper amount of energy.

So as things get closer, more acts get confirmed. More people who already know me from Rhymetorrents or wherever, and I get the feeling the show will just have a fantastic vibe so I'm not particularly nervous.

June 7th I get an email: "Would you be available to open for Koo Koo Kanga Roo"... and my first thought is... da fuck? Turns out it's someone Zilla had given my name to, and they needed an opening act for the 24th, the week after NerdRage. I check out the band's videos and am a bit confused as it seems they are aiming toward kids, and I ask the promoter if he's really familiar with my music (First red flag: "hey guys" HINT: attack slug is and has always been just me)

So after making sure he knows my material isn't 100% clean of profanity, we hash out the amount of time, which he originally said would need 30-40 minutes and I was kind of thought was crazy, so it came down to 25 minutes. (Second red flag: "nerd-core" HINT: who spells it with a hyphen? it's unnecessary")

That show starts at 5pm on a Friday, I didn't particularly expect a huge turnout.

I go back and forth a bit about "bringing people out" as I still think this promoter literally has no idea who I am or what I do. Expecting me to bring 15 people to a show when A: my fanbase mostly internet, not local B: it's literally my second show and C: I had just done a show 6 days prior, in a nerdcore showcase. That's super-saturation. (Third red flag: this was a nationally touring act, and they really need a nobody like me to "bring people out"?)

Shortly after this I hear back from Zilla, who lets me know he's glad I took the Koo Koo show, and now has 20 minutes of time for me at NerdRage instead of 15. So at this point all my rehearsals had been for. 14 minutes of material. After a few moments of panic, I quickly add a few more songs and resume rehearsals as planned.

The next day the promoter of the 2nd show says he booked someone else as the opener as he feels they can get more local people out of the show. (This ended up being ECOMOG who are excellent) He says he can keep me on with a shorter set, 20 minutes. This is just fine by me.

Anyhow, on to NerdRage, and I would worry about the Koo Koo show when then time comes.

Got into Philly about 3:30, (load-in was 4), and scoped out the venue. It's a yoga studio on the 2nd floor. Stand outside thinking maybe I'd spot someone for about a half hour, and then head upstairs... I'm the first one there. Well shit. So I take a seat on the comfy chair and wait for a bit. The next people to show up are Zilla + sound guy (I will probably be blanking on names for most of this, I'm awful at remembering them). Everyone seems quite nice.

More artists start to file in, and I change in to the orange hat because people are totally not recognizing me at first. We get all the technical stuff worked out, I do a small soundcheck, and the first thing I'm stuck by is not really being able to hear myself. There were no monitors facing the stage and the sound was just kind of bouncing off the walls in the small-ish building. But I can hear the beat well enough, so I thought that's really the important part.

Now, I'm generally a high strung person. I'm sure what will probably kill me one day is my incessant worrying over every tiny detail in my life. But 10-15 minutes before showtime was just a very calm feeling. Doors open and people file in, some of them I know, some I don't. It's all good. By now I've been shooting the shit with just about everyone who was performing that night. Video games, manga, anime, nerdcore, all stuff I've got way too much knowledge on.

I should probably mention at this point the incredible amount of heat building in the room. It was tolerable when it was just the acts performing hanging out, but add-in 40-50 fans on top of that and it was stifling. The time finally comes to get on stage and beside the fact that it was supremely hot, there were also 3 microphones I had to avoid stepping on. This kind of put a damper in the amount of energy I had planned on outputting, but at the same time, with the ridiculous heat, I don't know if I would have been able to pull that energy from anywhere.

This part of my memory is kind of a blur. I know I fucked up a small part of the first song (couple bars early on the first hook, no big deal). That's the only thing I can cough up to nervousness. Once I got into that first hook, all the rehearsing paid off as I felt my body go on autopilot. I didn't have to remember my lyrics, they were just there. But at the same time it was incredibly hot, and I could feel my energy being sapped by the 2nd song of a 6 song set. And more worrying still, I was perhaps trying too hard to compensate for the fact I couldn't hear my own voice bouncing back, that I was running out of breath. (which was really a non-factor in rehearsal with much more jumping around). Also applause is a strange thing that I am not used to.

In spite of all that, I finished up without any more glaring errors, and even the part where I lay down during "So Lazy" came off without the mic giving feedback, which was my only worry (didn't think to rehearse that part at sound check). At this point I'm drenched in sweat, and head to the back room to catch my breath, and take some Vicodin. Then to the bathroom to get changed into clothes that are not covered in sweat, and head back out to enjoy the show. Now everyone I talked to past this point tells me the set sounded good, and until I see the video playback I'll take their word for it.

So now it's just schmoozing and chilling with people. Watching the rest of the acts who all put on amazing shows, and handing out business cards. The rest of the night is also a bit of a blur, but everyone I talked to was awesome, and hell, I even got paid 20 bucks, which is enough to cover my gas money for the day. I don't make music to make money, that was never my goal. So having my costs covered was a nice bonus I didn't even expect. I've avoided doing shows up to this point because I was never specifically approached to do one, but this was the perfect venue for the very first show.

I hear from ECOMOG at the show they'll be playing the show on the 24th, so I felt a bit better about going where I'd at least know someone.

Now then, back home to rest because waking up the next day I felt like I got hit by a truck.

So the Tuesday before the 24th, I hear from the promoter again. payment is 50 bucks if... *IF* they get 40 people. Still being referred to as "you guys", and now he says "would love it if you could bring out 20 people"... what happened to 15? Oh red flags, I've lost count.

Regardless, I'm still going to do the show. I know a handful of my fans in Philly will be there, and if nothing else, I don't want to let anyone down who actually wants to see me live, as strange as I may think that makes them.

So Friday rolls around, and I pack up and roll myself back out to Philly. At this point I've kind of stopped worrying about everything else and focused on putting on a great 20 minutes of arm-flailing, and then watching the other acts. I get into the city about a half hour before load-in like before, chill for a bit, and then head in. Brick+Mortar are already there, and I chat for a bit with them. And low-and-behold, an actual stage (with monitors!) I tell myself even if I'm playing to an empty room, it's still kind of cool to be on a stage I can move around on and hear myself.

So I get changed, eat a powerbar, talk to the sound guy (who knew about NerdRage, and asked how that show went), and generally wandered around. 5:10 comes up and there are literally 3 people in the room. Awesome. So as I start my set a few more people come in (wearing Koo Koo shirts), and I figure maybe 8-10 people actually saw this show. I put the blame on this partially due to the fact that the Facebook event & venue page still said 5:30 even though I was told 5. So the only people there were the people I had told 5, and the ones who showed up for when doors opened at 5. Whatever, still doing my thing.

I quickly realized that having more room to move around + stage lights = just as hot and out of breath as NerdRage. I didn't fuck up anything this time, so at least that part came off well. And it was a lot easier to regulate my energy when I could actually hear myself through the monitors. The few people there were clapping between songs, so at least I wasn't being met with silence. I've realized that as just 1 dude and a microphone, it must be nice to have backup/other people. Doing everything myself, even with a backing track on the hooks is still really exhausting. (Probably doesn't help I don't leave myself much space to breathe) All in all it was a much different and certainly interesting experience. It served as a nice counterpoint to NerdRage.

The best part though, was that I managed to make new fans out of people who had never heard of me. This alone made the entire trip worth it. It kind of reaffirms the need to get my ass back to recording and making new music.

After my set, ECOMOG shows up and does their thing, which is awesome as usual. Then Brick+Mortar put on a very high energy set, even if I had no idea what they were singing about. Koo Koo was running a bit late with the Philly traffic and I saw them coming in the back door about halfway into my set. THEY ARE VERY TALL. Also the merch setup they have is really cool. It's got a PC with a webcam that you can take your picture on, and then they upload those shots to Facebook the next day. Really clever way to do fan interaction with social media. I got to talk to them a bit after my set and they are genuinely nice dudes. I got quizzed on the genesis of nerdcore, and how the movement came about. I knew the promoter booking the show had no idea when he spelled it "nerd-core". They told me how they played Nerdapalooza last year, so they had some understanding of the scene.

Anyhow, that set they do is fucking insane. I can't even comprehend putting out that much energy. They get the whole crowd dancing along and the songs are legitimately catchy. Looking back on all the acts that night I realized I was the only one cursing up a storm. Makes me look a bit silly in retrospect, but whatever.

We ended up with 27 "paid", so the openers made no money. Personally I kind of expected as much considering how last minute things came together. (and certainly because most everyone in the area who wanted to see me, already had 6 days prior). The promoter couldn't even be bothered to learn basic facts about who he was booking, which I know isn't really his job, but NerdRage felt so much better because Zilla had a vested interest in seeing it succeed as he was also performing on the bill. Got some good advice from the lead singer of Brick+Mortar about getting a bass amp to monitor my vocals, at this point I don't know what the future holds for live performances, but it's certainly an expense I'll consider.

So after talking to more people than I would in any given month, I hit the road to get myself back home. The Vicodin was working fantastically, and there was very little traffic. I had managed to survive 2 shows in Philly without getting my car stolen, or any traffic tickets. I managed to get real lucky with parking in close proximity to the venue both times, which is great when you've got a bad back.

All in all I'd say both experiences were very positive. I certainly learned a lot about what goes into a live show, and I hope everyone who came out to see me enjoyed themselves. While I may not put the most faith in the quality of my music at times, I'm certainly committed to making sure it's a high energy show.

Thanks to everyone who came out, everyone I got to talk to, and all the artists I performed with. I can genuinely say everyone was awesome, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

-attackslug

Labels: attack slug, nerdcore

so yeah... stuff

lol blog
lol internet

the bug scene in king kong still gives me the chills

blah blah blah