Thursday, July 8, we played at the Willowdale Chapel with Good to Go, Leedumb, and the Smiley Kids. The Smiley Kids are a touring band from Colorado, and I was generally impressed with them. We played for half an hour, but fit in an 8 song set. Highlights included the Dancing Cow playing Jam Block for Skinny Sweaty Man, and Mark chasing the Dancing Cow during Sharkpig. The guy from the Smiley Kids is a really nice guy, and he wasn't short on compliments. Maybe it's cuz we were good, maybe it's just cuz he's nice, but I wasn't gonna argue. If you ever need a dime, cuz you have to make a phone call and you only have a quarter, I'll betcha he'll give it to you. That is, if he's not on tour.
Sunday, June 13 we played a graduation party for someone named Griffith. We don't know his first name. It rained really hard and the tarp we were under kinda sucked, so we got soaked. The status of our equipment remains to be seen, but we kept playing, despite the crowd of people who flocked under the 10 foot tarp for protection. We played for well over an hour, covering all our material, improvising a few jams, and even throwing in 2 or 3 covers.
Most recently, we played at the Willowdale Chapel Coffeehouse, in Willowdale, which is halfway between Unionville and Kennett and shouldn't really even qualify as a town. This was a christian coffeehouse, but we're not christian, and they asked us to play anyway. No one seemed to care, and I sure don't, so fun was had by all. This was the first time I used my Alesis D4 drum module, and that sounds pretty good. We only got to play 4 songs, because of time restrictions, added to by the fact that the show started a half hour late. But those 4 sounded pretty good I think. As a result of this show, we've been asked to play another show put on at the American Legion. Cool. Also appearing were 5FD, the Look Trick, and Dead Poets Society, a hip-hop group from California.
The Battle of the Bands at Anson B. Nixon Park was pretty much fun, if you ask me, which you would if you were talking to me. I didn't even know it was a battle until I was informed that we didn't win. I wasn't too disappointed about that, for one reason: we will NEVER win a battle of the bands, unsigned band contest, talent contest, or any other contest where a winner is picked. How do I know this? I just do. I mean, I like our music a lot and all, and there are other people who do. But I don't think there's ever going to be a full panel of judges that sorts thru the bands and picks Us, with two members and songs about hybrid sharks, as the best. Anyhow, I digress. It was great fun, we started at about 2:15 and played until about 3:00. We played most of our material, no covers except for "Skinny Sweaty Man in a Green Suit." Mark's car was pulled right up to the stage, and there was a little kid dancing on the hood. Then Shawn Anderson road a bike onto the stage and headed straight for my drumset. Joe Passante joined us on stage for his favorite song, "Where's Florence." We finished with "Pickin' Blueberries on a Camel" and had a big ridiculous noise ending. Like I said, good fun.
The Kennett High School Afterprom Party was good clean fun after the Junior prom on April 2. We went on twice, once at 12:30 and once at 2:30. Both times the dancing cow was present, dancing up a storm. Unfortunately, Mark broke a string with 2 songs left to go in the 2nd set, and the rest was scrapped. The 7 songs that we did play sounded pretty good from where I was sitting, and the vocals were actually loud enough. Hell yeah! When was the last time you heard that happen? Well it happened. Here's the set list if you care.
We played the Halloween show at Stapley's. There we played with 3CanSam, who are pretty much the house band of the Stapley residence. We made fun of Rachel a lot, and there were lots of 14 year old girls there. Don't ask me why, I guess 14 year old girls like Halloween or something.
October 10 was the show at Planet Trog. Now I don't know about you, but when I play at a Laser Tag arena, I get pretty freakin happy. The audience pretty much sat around like logs, but the dancing cow pulled off some zaniness and I had a hell of a good time. This show was with important people like nationally renowned punk band Boxcar, and others like Nepenthe and the Ritalin Kids. There were a bunch of important bands there, the type of bands that people care about. I was pretty impressed.
August 17 we played at the Kennett Square American Legion. I'm not gonna say it was the best show ever, but I sure did have a good time playing there. We played there with Wormbath and I don't think Wormbath like their microphones cuz they kept sounding really bad. They sounded fine for Us, so I guess we got lucky. Also at this show were Special Guest and 3CanSam. And some girl who stood in the middle of the floor staring at us hypnotically. I think she was wondering why we were on stage and not Wormbath.
Sometime in July, there was a wedding party that we played at. Wedding parties don't sound like much fun, but when there's a bunch of old time fiddle musicians who seemed perfectly content to listen to loud idiot music, that's when i have fun. And I did. Plenty. Old time fiddle musicians sure are nice to other musicians, even if they are a 2 piece band who plays nonsensical rock.
Then before that there were some parties that were unimportant, but i'm sure we had fun at them nontheless.
Looking way back, we remember Zev's party which at the time was the biggest gig we ever played. Everyone hated the party and pretty much hated Us but they were pretty nice and they pretended like they thought we were good. Everyone also hated 3 Can Sam, but they didn't even pretend to like them. I still liked the hundred meatballs and giant hoagies
Way Way back in the day Mark had a Halloween party. That was back when we sucked, as opposed to now when we rock harder than diamonds on a windshield.