This band. FUck yeah !!! Priests is an awesome band, they are from Washington D.C.. They played my house last year, it was an 8 band bill -- Spiked Punch / Priests / Andrian and Gabe doing double drums / Drider / Triangulators / Night Court / Reverse X Rays / Hunter Jones. Also Magia Negra was supposed to play like their 3rd show, but it barely didnt work out because the bill was overbooked and i fucked up the times that i told people when they were playing. I think Moron Mountain was supposed to play, or did play as well? Maybe it could have been slightly better if everyone played, but it was still yr classic 8 band house show -- my 2 bands got to play, 4 of my coworkers bands played (!), Night Court was awesome as always, and Priests fuckin slayed !!! The space is so small, it was loud and hot and sweaty and only so many people fit. Shout out to Indio Beer for fuckin hookin' it up and holdin' it down all summer long last summer. Yeah motherfucker!! A real hootenanny. Mainly with those parties at the house last summer the idea was just to get really drunk and be in the perfect environment where that would be ok, and then when i was wasted i could go back in my room whenever i wanted and just pass out. That was the jist of it. I think we did 3 shows at the house last summer, I should prob try to get at least one together for fun for this summer, its almost July already. Lately Ive been wanting to do some upper level summer shit so i feel like im not wasting my summer/life ... so far my list is I want to play D and D with my coworkers, go skating with them, go to the bar with them, record music. I dont even count playing shows, thats fun, but I need the hard stuff -- recording sessions that go all night n stuff. A show like tonight. And more swimming, didnt I used to go swimming at least every couple days when it was summer? ive hit up 3 different spots so far, Shhh beach, The Chimney Sweep, and I just hit up Barton Springs today for the first time, but thats it so far.
Anyways, Priests are incredible. Theres like shit inside of them that they need to get out, and I'm all about that lately. I dont even want to write about them as a band, because I feel like it would be reductive. Im glad they exist. They speak with a voice that really resonates to me, like it reminds me of something important in my past. They are a hard band to want to write about because gender is pretty central to their music IMO, down to the level of who cues who when, but like me writing on the subject seems like a sure way to put a foot in my mouth. Generalistically, the point would be that if you compared standard 4 pieces to each other, I would say who is straight and who is gay and who is male and who is female are definitely strong markers in a very complex matrix that spits out what ends up happening and how the music comes out, and its cool to see what happens when you get more towards the margins of that matrix compared with bands more reflective of the social norm. I would be really interested to read anything someone in their band wrote about the subjects, or related subjects....one time I read a like Graduate School level essay on some pop culture show written by the drummer, i think just for fun. It was pretty amazing, even though it was a show I didnt watch ! I fucked up, I bought all their shit at the merch table pretty much, but didnt grab a free zine the singer made, which i really wanted, now i gotta try and figure it out.
i believe this is her singing in Chain and The Gang, her old band, maybe its the same drummer too?
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Bill Baird told me something both obvious and profound today, which was that the point of a show is to win over the audience. Its pointless to just have a show.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Priests @ Mohawk 6-25-14, last summer @ Casa Olander
Friday, June 20, 2014
2 shows: @ CuCs + White Swan, 6-11-14, 6-13-14, Snow Wite // Nu Depth // Michael Stasis // Party Plants // Jagerbumps // Airplane Mode
i started a recap of the last 2 shows Party Plants did and it became sort of arduous. Im sure there were some good points in there, I just wanted to start over and do a blah blah blah recap.
First show, last Wednesday 6/11/14 @ Cheer Up Charlies. The bill was Snow Wite (L.A.) // Party Plants // Jagerbumps // Nu Depth (9 pm, from Charlottesville VA, also played drums in Snow Wite). Free show, the bands (all $ went to the touring bands) got 100 bucks from the bar, which was fair for the crowd. It would have been nice to make something on the door for the local bands that put the show together and actually brought the people out, but I think Cheer Up's is a smart bar, the way they are positioning themselves among all the bars to have it always be free, so I dont really fault them. They are definitely valuable to have around from a booking perspective, exactly for a show like this, and I think theyve done a really nice job with the new spot, it still feels comfortable and fun and like the same place.
This show was interesting. Nu Depth was great in the space. We did a crowdsurf of him with 8 people in the audience or so. He went all around the whole place and did some shit with a concrete brick. it was engaging. Jagerbumps and Party Plants both played sets that had some growing pains, but I felt like it was a really gritty show. Its interesting being a part of the band where the band has ppl that come to the shows and have fun, but its also the shared energy between the ppl on stage and the ppl in the audience is completely integral. We played much better Friday. We practiced much better Wednesday afternoon than the show we played Wednesday night. There were all kinds of circumstances involved. Alot of ppl told us "good show", but really it wasnt. Our band has magic in it, and unfortunately that magic doesnt manifest itself every single time we have a show. It def didnt at this show, and it def did appear on Friday. It would be nice to be in a band where it was magic every night. If we went on tour we would have that, Im sure of it. Its mostly about practicing and then sleeping and then playing, otherwise you are trying to play a mimic of yourself. Snow Wite really brought it. The most exciting thing that happened was when we went back to my house and drained a case of wine after the show. Ppl in the audience can get all their haterade out, it still felt like a successful show to me based solely on the hangout afterwards. Really thats not true, its too complicated a show to write about. The cool thing is we are a living breathing organism. Im writing like nothing about the other bands, the other post went pretty in depth. Snow Wite has got "it", i love that dude. He is very genuine, and a fun dude, and very talented. i was playing Love You Like Limeade subconsciously on drums and guitar for days. Hope to see him again over south by.
Second Show , Last Friday 6/13/14 @ White Swan. The bill was Michael Stasis (L.A) // Party Plants // Airplane Mode, $3 show
I missed Airplane Mode, which felt especially shitty because Joey was at our show Wednesday. It was because I was trying to harangue my roommates into coming to the show. Its important to have the energy of new audience members. We played balls out dynamite. Sean Padilla was in the audience and he was rocking out. It is going to be a loss to Austin when he moves away. A very talented dude, and a nice dude, with a sharp perspective. It was really shitty when that shit with his van getting tagged went down. I was kinda surprised it didnt get repainted over, because I think a bunch of people were down to do so at the time or something, but i never really found out what happened with that. Yeah, anyways we played great. Everyone in our band knew we were gonna play good. No monitors, small crowd, we had just played, and we hadnt practiced since then. Its really at least 50% that we were just less underpractiiced. Sorry to our fans on the Wednesday show, if you could read between the lines, its obvious probably that we would play better Friday, but a lot of those ppl were def Jagerbumps' crew. Michael Stasis is a super dude and we played old guitars and went swimming and got bar-b-que twice. I was fucking jetfueled off the Party Plants set, and I was like rocking out so hard to his music, way more than anyone else. I just love music, if it sounds sweet, it is sweet, thats what youa re trying to achieve right, to be able to let yourself go like that? So if you already have it why roll it back because the music is meerly good and not great. Anways hes a swell dude, he was playing along to backing tracks. We booked this show super last second and managed to get him like 55 bucks from the door.
I think its funny enough that there exists a perception that how we are booking shows is in any way capitalistic, that's why i bring up the money part. It all went to touring bands. Anytime we have done a show where we have made money, its basically gone immediately to recording. The innerband vibe is always nicer if people arent being asked to pay out of pocket for that, so i dont really apologize for having a small band fund. People should have $3 or $5 occasionally to see their friends bands, or bands that arent their friends that are just good bands if they are music fans. Mostly im thinking of people so orthodox that they would find that too capitalistic or something.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Party Plants - Great Interplanetary Romance VIDEO
We made a video yall ! Directed and edited by the band ! Thx Courtney for letting us use your computer !
Party Plants
Great Interplanetary Romance
Party Plants EP
Pretty All Right Records
2014
If you are inspired, grab the whole EP here.
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