You gene, I gene, we all scream at Eugene

Wow - what a show last Friday.

Baloney and I lived in the town of Eugene, OR, for way too long and always get the same feeling of creeping, insidious dissatisfaction whenever returning. But not this time (for me, that is - Baloney still went insane after getting a parking ticket :20 min. after pulling into town).

Here is a copy of the writeup we received in the local alt.rag, the Eugene Weakly-er, Weekly. With that kinda prep on the place we should've known there'd be such a kickazz turnout but we were a little skeptical. We arrived early (naturally - the ONE thing we're not lazy about) and, after unsuccessful attempts to get into John Henry's yielded negative results, we mosied on over to Lucky's. Now, before the citywide indoor smoking ban, this was a great pool/cigar bar that sold $.95 glasses of Henry's and was literally around the block where I "worked." Now, tho', it just seemed kinda sad. Competing for our biz that night, local faves Floater were also playing downtown (but for $15). Any band that describes themselves as "art-metal" needs to have some metal artistically wrapped around their head in ultraviolent fashion. One cat, upon seeing our attempts to roust someone at John Henry's, said, "You should skip that and go see Floater!" Dr. C.H.O.A.D. retorted with one of his better ones, "'Floater'? You mean like a turd?" In true oregonian fashion this cat kept walking and muttering out loud but it felt good to already take that bite.

Speaking of bite, two things sorta related. The show featured 4 bands and started "promptly" at 10:30pm. But the bar staff was great and kept shoving handfuls of drink tickets at us so who are we to say anything bad about that setup? The first band, tho', was so abysmally awful as to drive me outside to hang with old peeps. This led to me finding the hot dog cart on the corner, a vendor selling yer basic Cossco dawgs but offering such fine ammenities as real bacon bits, grilled red peppers, and chipotle mustard. Slathering on a boatload of onions, I enjoyed every bit of the $2.50 it cost.

Thankfully, that band closed up (this their first and most likely last show - aren't we the favored ones?) and the night moved along. The Anxieties tore through a :25 min. set of Screeching Weasel songs and, to my pleasure, did belt out the hit, "I Hate Led Zepplin." Short and sweet, it was a nice break from the previous band and, for me - who seems to be the only SW fan around much - a decent enough time. A seldom seen Turbonegro cover band, Burt Reynolds Overdrive, was up next. They put on a great energetic set and I don't even like Turbonegro. Go figure. Or maybe it was the contact high I was getting waiting in the green room before their set (this is eugene, after all). In any case, they, too, were a welcome addition to the night - plus it was good to see the sadly now-defunct Courtesy Clerks doing something more.

At about :10 after 1am we hit the stage. Normally, when this happens, so many folks have cleared out of the given place that we're just playing to the other bands that are stranded there. Not so the case this evening, tho'. While not as packed as earlier in the night the true faithful remained to raise some fists, guffaws, drinks, and laughter. Thankfully, we'd had the foresight to cut Baloney's mic 'cuz he was buzzing offa 6 long islands and a broken bass strap - still staying in tune and focused, tho', which was damn impressive. Everything he also threw out to the audience got chucked back at us nicely, too, and even a few things that we didn't supply found their way on stage. The pizza to my crotch was a nice touch, too, 'cuz this place didn't serve any pizza. I still think it was thrown by one of my chickenshite enemies from The Old Days who's all fat now and was sorta half-turned to the stage but still stayed through our entire set but who knows? We were all on the edge of puking or passing out our entire set but we were also actually in tune and having a ball. Everyone there seemed to be very much into it and we'd like to thank 'em all, especially those that started the pit and kept it going. Fantabulous!

We had our great haul at the end of the evening, not the least of which was the invitiation to return whenever we wanted. That sure sounds good to us but we've got some miles to put on our soles first. We'll be back, Eugene, with a new setlist and more raucousness, just you wait!