STRIKES
Strikes Again! played its first show in four months at Sin-e.
It was an exciting show for many reasons, the four month hiatus for starters. On top of that, it was our first show playing an entire set of new material. Some of these songs have been in our setlists for the last few years, and we've been recording a handful of them at Smoke & Mirrors, but to us it felt like we were stepping forward.
Here was the really exciting part: singer John van Atta called us all individually that day to tell us that he had a bad, bad sinus infection and wouldn't be able to help us load in. (For a day job, John works with kids and gets lots of exposure to sticky, bacteria-laden hugs, so he gets sick pretty regularly.)
John continued with his message: "You have a very good chance of getting sick". Turns out John also had pinkeye. Because John normally collides with us during a Strikes show (he took out half of my entire drumset at one show with one ill-timed move) , I realized he was merely anticipating that we'd catch what he had. Pretty thoughtful on his part. So we let him sleep.
The rest of the band spent our last few healthy hours eating some Cuban food on Avenue C, then watching a tight set from Ashford Breaks who started with one of my favorite Brian Eno songs, "Needles in the Camel's Eye". We were a little behind schedule when we took the stage, and Jay our soundman asked us to start as soon as we could.
2 minutes into our set, the kick drum was sliding all over the place. I've dealt with the sliding kick drum in the past, and there are enough breaks in our songs for me to pull it back to earth, but there was something really wrong here. To my fault, I didn't really take a good look at it before we started; I'd just seen Ashford Breaks' guy play it with no apparent faults. But normally when it's not anchored down it just slides away from me, and I pull it back. Tonight it would slide and rotate 18 inches to the right and then stop dead, google-eyed. I could see it was cockeyed, and I wanted to go fix it, but that's the thing about a Strikes Again! show; certain parts of my brain just stop working, and other senses get heightened. I couldn't walk out there and look at a bass drum leg--my adrenaline was pumping. Plus, walking disease John van Atta was right in front of my drum set; going out there to fix the drum guaranteed certain quarantine.
Three songs in, I thought I'd found a sweet spot on the threadbare drum rug, as we ran through Cure All. This is a song I'm able to sit back on and listen to the band, so I'm glad the drum sat still long enough to drink in the moment. It felt great.
half a song later, the kick drum went mobile again. It was bouncing so much that my kick pedal started falling apart. It slid so far to my right that I had to go bowlegged to get it. I was kicking at my pedal the way you kicked at the neighborhood dog who'd lash out at your ankles while you rode by him on your broken-down bike. Every second or third nervous lunge at your right pedal would catch him squarely in the face, making him mad, sending him away temporarily, only to come back.
By the time we got to 'Hell Disaster', our set closer, I'd had enough. I needed one song with kick drum. So I just stopped after the first chorus and got up. I picked up the kick drum, put it squarely on the rug, kicked out the stool, knelt down, and spent a good 15-20 seconds making sure my pedal was on securely. Jeff (guitar) and John (bass) kept playing, giving me good cover. The great thing was that the song sounded really good without the drums, so I got caught up in listening to the song, and lost track of what I was doing. Eventually, I got the kick to what I thought was fixed. I counted back in and we were right back in the song. (It turns out that that moment was John van Atta's favorite of the entire set; I was oblivious, but the band had completely picked me up. )
30 seconds later the bass drum was gone again. I think it might have actually left the club, caught a cab to the East River, and jumped in. And I got blind pissed. This was the house kit, yes, it saved me the trouble of bringing all my drums, yes, but for the children, why can't I get the goddamn kick drum to sit still for 30 goddamn seconds?
So we get to the last 5 seconds of Hell Disaster, and I just started kicking the bass drum. Not the pedal; the drum itself. It ended up in the middle of the stage, and I forget how it happened,
but it ended up on its side in the front of the stage. The pedal was still attached, sticking up into the air. Everyone was still playing, but I got up and started pounding the crap out of it with my sticks. I'd kicked at and missed that bass drum 100 times during our set, and I was cocksure I'd get every one of those back.
John, John and Jeff swallowed the chaos and kept on playing. For good measure, they sent the rest of the kit to the ground, and the stage became a swimming sea of cymbals and drum detritus. They had my back, and that's when I remembered how good it felt to be in a band.
Later I found out that our pink-eyed infection-drowned singer had survived the set, but had inexplicably started bleeding at the hand halfway through our set. We all take our lumps. I hope he lives. Meanwhile, I can't wait for the next show.
Oh yeah -- the drummer from the next band (Liam and Me) had set up his snare drum at the front of the stage while we were playing and was practicing his parts while we were performing. What an asshole! I hope he gets pinkeye.
It was an exciting show for many reasons, the four month hiatus for starters. On top of that, it was our first show playing an entire set of new material. Some of these songs have been in our setlists for the last few years, and we've been recording a handful of them at Smoke & Mirrors, but to us it felt like we were stepping forward.
Here was the really exciting part: singer John van Atta called us all individually that day to tell us that he had a bad, bad sinus infection and wouldn't be able to help us load in. (For a day job, John works with kids and gets lots of exposure to sticky, bacteria-laden hugs, so he gets sick pretty regularly.)
John continued with his message: "You have a very good chance of getting sick". Turns out John also had pinkeye. Because John normally collides with us during a Strikes show (he took out half of my entire drumset at one show with one ill-timed move) , I realized he was merely anticipating that we'd catch what he had. Pretty thoughtful on his part. So we let him sleep.
The rest of the band spent our last few healthy hours eating some Cuban food on Avenue C, then watching a tight set from Ashford Breaks who started with one of my favorite Brian Eno songs, "Needles in the Camel's Eye". We were a little behind schedule when we took the stage, and Jay our soundman asked us to start as soon as we could.
2 minutes into our set, the kick drum was sliding all over the place. I've dealt with the sliding kick drum in the past, and there are enough breaks in our songs for me to pull it back to earth, but there was something really wrong here. To my fault, I didn't really take a good look at it before we started; I'd just seen Ashford Breaks' guy play it with no apparent faults. But normally when it's not anchored down it just slides away from me, and I pull it back. Tonight it would slide and rotate 18 inches to the right and then stop dead, google-eyed. I could see it was cockeyed, and I wanted to go fix it, but that's the thing about a Strikes Again! show; certain parts of my brain just stop working, and other senses get heightened. I couldn't walk out there and look at a bass drum leg--my adrenaline was pumping. Plus, walking disease John van Atta was right in front of my drum set; going out there to fix the drum guaranteed certain quarantine.
Three songs in, I thought I'd found a sweet spot on the threadbare drum rug, as we ran through Cure All. This is a song I'm able to sit back on and listen to the band, so I'm glad the drum sat still long enough to drink in the moment. It felt great.
half a song later, the kick drum went mobile again. It was bouncing so much that my kick pedal started falling apart. It slid so far to my right that I had to go bowlegged to get it. I was kicking at my pedal the way you kicked at the neighborhood dog who'd lash out at your ankles while you rode by him on your broken-down bike. Every second or third nervous lunge at your right pedal would catch him squarely in the face, making him mad, sending him away temporarily, only to come back.
By the time we got to 'Hell Disaster', our set closer, I'd had enough. I needed one song with kick drum. So I just stopped after the first chorus and got up. I picked up the kick drum, put it squarely on the rug, kicked out the stool, knelt down, and spent a good 15-20 seconds making sure my pedal was on securely. Jeff (guitar) and John (bass) kept playing, giving me good cover. The great thing was that the song sounded really good without the drums, so I got caught up in listening to the song, and lost track of what I was doing. Eventually, I got the kick to what I thought was fixed. I counted back in and we were right back in the song. (It turns out that that moment was John van Atta's favorite of the entire set; I was oblivious, but the band had completely picked me up. )
30 seconds later the bass drum was gone again. I think it might have actually left the club, caught a cab to the East River, and jumped in. And I got blind pissed. This was the house kit, yes, it saved me the trouble of bringing all my drums, yes, but for the children, why can't I get the goddamn kick drum to sit still for 30 goddamn seconds?
So we get to the last 5 seconds of Hell Disaster, and I just started kicking the bass drum. Not the pedal; the drum itself. It ended up in the middle of the stage, and I forget how it happened,
but it ended up on its side in the front of the stage. The pedal was still attached, sticking up into the air. Everyone was still playing, but I got up and started pounding the crap out of it with my sticks. I'd kicked at and missed that bass drum 100 times during our set, and I was cocksure I'd get every one of those back.
John, John and Jeff swallowed the chaos and kept on playing. For good measure, they sent the rest of the kit to the ground, and the stage became a swimming sea of cymbals and drum detritus. They had my back, and that's when I remembered how good it felt to be in a band.
Later I found out that our pink-eyed infection-drowned singer had survived the set, but had inexplicably started bleeding at the hand halfway through our set. We all take our lumps. I hope he lives. Meanwhile, I can't wait for the next show.
Oh yeah -- the drummer from the next band (Liam and Me) had set up his snare drum at the front of the stage while we were playing and was practicing his parts while we were performing. What an asshole! I hope he gets pinkeye.
posted by stinkrock at 12:34 AM
7 Comments:
Hope Vicki got a photo or two of the denouement. You ought to make the standing bass drum playing thing part of your regular set. Tribal fury!
Tim
PS. I dig that "Enemies" song.
There's only one way to go from here...
Where/when can we get the record?
Holy Wow! Sorry I missed the energy! I likely would've been bowled over by it. Thanks for the drummer's perspective of the show.
I, too, am very sorry I missed the show. Too many late nights, feeling like shit by Saturday...
Anyhow, I wrote a nice email to Liam and Me re: snare drumming. WTF?
Tony - there's an earlier mix of one song at our myspace page myspace.com/strikesagainnyc, and the rest of the demo will be ready as soon as Chrispy can find us hookers for the last couple mixing sessions who don't mind pink eye.
Chrispy - wow. You did write Liam and me. Be careful of those guys, I think they keep weapons in their hair a la Sweet Lou Dunbar in the Globetrotters cartoons.
It's the least I could do, considering I missed the show.
I'm an irate fan, dammit! NO ONE PLAYS SNARE DRUM DURING A STRIKES! SET EXCEPT MIKE. NO ONE.
Playing a snare drum during a Strikes set is like those assholes who play guitar while engineers are trying to mix... Wait a minute, forget what I just said.
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