Priests @ Mohawk 6-25-14, last summer @ Casa Olander

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.