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Science Faction (2006)
10 days of madness promoting our latest release in the NW and California. Partially documented by Damon Ristau.
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REDDING (ugh)
Here are some signs that your show might not live up to your expectations.
1) The first band is setting up their equipment and there are two kick drums.
2) The club is as big as a football field, but, it's normally a top 40
club. You are a part of "Hard Rock Wednesdays", an event that
netted 30 people last week.
3) When you ask the sound guy if he's panned the kick drums, he ask you what panned means.
4) When you offer your iPod to the soundguy so he can test the board's
EQ he asks you if it has "one of these little connector
thingies". "connector thingies" = eighth inch connector.
5) You are in Redding, California.
We got to the club pretty early and sorta milled around for a little
while. The club was as cold as a meat locker. We set up our
merch and then listened to "Hell Denied"'s drummer soundcheck his drums
for about 30 minutes. Hell Denied were a Christian cookie monster
metal band. Yup, we didn't see that coming. We thought we
were playing with the Glossines only, but it wasn't to be.
Speaking of the Glossines, they rolled up to the club and their roadie
unloaded all of their gear. I made some smalltalk with him and
then one of the Glossines asked me if I was in the second band. I
said that I was and she asked if we could have a "pow wow". I
walked out to their van and when I realized that the Pow Wow was going
to need to involve all 3 of the Glossines, I knew that something was
afoot. They explained that they were a touring band and that tour
was hard (you don't say? The roadie part sure seemed nice) and
asked if they could play first because all of our friends were going to
leave after we played (the club was empty, mind you). I told them
that, not only are we also a touring band, we've been out for 8 days
and we're from Montana. Still, I told them that they could play
second (an offer that was later rescinded after we remembered that Alex
and Andrew had driven up from Corning to see us and would be wanting to
drive home after our set).
So, it seemed like we had made nice with the Glossines, but there was
still some underlying weirdness. I got the same vibe from them
that I have gotten from all San Diego bands that we've met on our
tours. I don't know if that scene is cutthroat or cliquey or
what, but I never get that feeling of camaraderie from SD bands.
Maybe they just don't like charming dorks.
We played our set for Hell Denied, the staff, and Andrew and
Alex. We had a good time and dedicated Videogaming to Hell Denied
and Type O' Girl to the Glossines. Nobody cared. Heh.
When our set was finished, we grabbed some beers and sat on the plush
couch to watch the Glossines' set unfold. They were pretty good,
like a three piece early Donnas with simpler song structures.
They certainly had the rock chick look with hair lights and classic
hard rock band T-shirts and whatnot. We enjoyed their whole set
(something I have a sneaking suspicion they wouldn't have done if our
roles were reversed). Enjoying their set was made immensely more
difficult by the sound guy's help tuning their sound. His tuning
involved cranking random knobs until the piercing howl of feedback made
your ears bleed. After a while, you came to realize that this was
better than his second method of helping which involved him cranking
knobs and then walking away for 5 minutes while feedback assaulted you.
The guitar player from the Glossines had the exact same Fender Super
Amp as me. I've never seen anyone else play one of those.
That was neat. The image was completed when she broke a string
and I let her borrow my guitar. At that moment, she looked just
like me, except she was a girl and she was cute and she was more put
together. So, I guess it was just the guitar and amp. When
she tuned my guitar she made a comment that it was "tuned for
metal". I'm not sure if she thought I was in Hell Denied or if
she thought that Volumen was a metal band. In either case, I was
psyched.
After the show we made a beeline for the hotel because we've got a
shitload of driving to do today (around 11 hours, we think). On
our way out, we got another earful of hard luck story from the
Glossines. She was explaining that they "would totally let you
crash in our room", but they had to stay in the Hilton because the
first hotel they tried was a dive. My eyes welled up with
tears. They explained that they couldn't really rough it like we
could because they were much older than us. I replied that we
were 30-38 years old. She paused and said, "Yeah, we're as old as
you guys, we roll like soccer moms". I think she tagged on that
last bit because she knew I couldn't one-up soccer moms.
So. Long story short, if you are a touring rock band, just keep
driving past Redding. Although, we did meet Buddy and his friend
and they bought a CD, so, who knows. Maybe next time there'll be
some punk rockers at the show?
-Volumen-1
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