Some lineup changes occurred over the year that the band existed in that incarnation, most of which aren't relevent enough for me to remember or mention, except for one of the founding guitarists' disappearance early on; this was the start of the band's tendency to produce ridiculous stories that I didn't know I'd still be telling after so long. Taylor had been ousted from bands before, always for getting into some sort of trouble. The most recent time, a longer-than-usual stint in juvenile correction caused him to do some searching within himself and decide to clean up and get serious about music. That lasted until it was time for Marley Fest down in Austin. He hitched a ride down for the festival, and for whatever reason, didn't come back when it was over - instead, he embarked on an indefinite journey all around the country as a train-hopping punk rock vagabond, a journey that, to the best of my knowledge, he still hasn't returned from, except to visit from time to time.
So, minus one guitar player, we soldiered on, and after six months, we were ready to play a show. Why did it take us six months? Who knows. I don't remember much about what went into the creation of our set list, I just remember it happening, and I remember obsessively practicing it. Looking back on it, it seems like all of our songs just materialized from nothing, and we received them from whatever supernatural force had created them, and played the shit out of them. By the time we booked our first date that September, we knew what we were doing. We were surviving on borrowed gear; Gunnar played guitar and Trey played bass, traditionally on identical Fender Rumble bass combos, but the inception of this band led to the cruel and merciless punishment of their cheap amps, which were soon tossed in the "broken" pile with years' worth of secondhand gear. By the time our show rolled around, we'd settled on a permanent setup consisting exclusively of the abrasive solid-state rage that seemingly makes up all small town metal bands' limited arsenal. At practice, it was a Marshall MG100 half stack for guitar, and a Peavey Transtube guitar head on a G-K 4x10 for bass. For shows, we ran the line out from the Marshall to a friend's Crate half stack, totalling two hundred watts into eight 12" speakers, to produce the absolute worst sound you've ever heard - and be as loud as we possibly could. So, at least we had one thing right.
Our first show is where it starts to get good. We thought we were in for a house show with some metal and streetpunk bands from the Fort Worth scene. What we didn't realize was how far away Grandview was, from us, from Fort Worth, or from anything for that matter. We also didn't know we wouldn't actually be playing indoors. We showed up early, to find that the address we were sent to was somebody's ranch, a few acres of wire-fence pasture in the middle of absolutely nowhere. We arrived with seven carloads of friends in tow, and for a while, were perplexed at the absence of any other human life. Nobody was answering our calls, and we started to think we'd been had. Maybe somebody thought it would be funny to tell us there was a show in the middle of nowhere, and send us off to feel stupid with our empty gas tanks? But we finally spoke to the inhabitants of the double-wide trailer on the property, who were aware of a show happening, but weren't interested in talking to us, and didn't know or care where the guy who set everything up happened to be.
Finally, someone showed up, and we began setting up to play first. The plan was so far beyond ridiculous that it was closer to bumfuck Egypt than our physical location was. The kid's dad, who owned the property, was a tractor mechanic, and had a very large metal barn full of halfway-disassembled tractors, uncovered oil pans, and piles of random parts. We hauled our gear what seemed like a mile, from the front driveway, through the barn, and into the backyard, where a small clearing had been mowed into the three-foot-high grass, in the shadow of the barn's towering peak. We set up at the nearest edge of this clearing, amps facing into the great beyond, and found ourselves in complete darkness by time the show started, which must have been at least two or three hours later than planned. We had run two extension cords and a power strip together, to span the fifty feet from barn to yard, and once we hooked up our three amps, and another band's Marshall MG100 for vocals, the power strip was full, and probably on the verge of bursting into flames, so the one utility light on hand was out of the question. We had set up our gear by the glow of flashlights and cigarette lighters, and now, we would play a show in the high-beam headlights of someone's old Chevy pickup.
Everything becomes a blur in my memory from the moment the music started, but many key details stand out. For one, there must have been at least eighty people at this show, all of them unruly punks, and all of them completely obliterated on cheap alcohol. We had to stop our set several times to plug in cables that had been tripped over in the massive circle pit that materialized before us. I remember firecrackers going off in the middle of the pit, beneath people's feet in the dead grass; I remember a cow getting loose (I'm not making this up) and running past the crowd, spooked by all the noise and movement. I remember a huge fight breaking out, but it's unclear whether this occurred during our set or later in the show. One memorable quote was "If you fuck with me, you're fucking with the United States Marine Corps!" when a random toughguy started a brawl with a friend's short-tempered kid brother. I remember swinging my arms as wildly as possible to ward off mosquitoes while I played, mostly to no avail, despite the waves of sweat that rolled off my skin in the muggy evening air.
Before I knew it, our set was over. I chugged a bottle of water and began breaking down my gear as I slowly regained my breath, and the first person that talked to me was a guy in a baseball cap with a 40 Oz, who had been rocking out over my left shoulder the whole time, making me nervous out of fear of accidentally beaning him in the face with a drumstick. He greeted me with his free hand and told me I was the best drummer he'd ever seen, and that he would play in a band too if he hadn't dedicated his life to mixed martial arts. I met a girl with a funny nickname. She was a curvy blonde with a mohawk and typical punk rock garb from her combat boots to her studded leather vest; she was dating the drummer from another band, and over the next few shows we played with them, I came to know her as the sweetest person that could possibly hang out with such a trashy and perpetually drunk group of people, and I'll admit to having a slight crush on her and those unreachable blue eyes.
That show still stands out to me as the most insane thing I've ever been a part of, musically or otherwise. We played our first show in front of an enormous, extremely drunk, extremely ill-behaved crowd, in a land of no laws and no supervision. Unfortunately, my band was relegated to the unbreakable pigeonhole of playing with crusty punk kids and amateur metal bands, and the constant grind of our subsequent shows demonstrated to me all the things I've come to hate about music, primarily bands whose only influence is Pantera, and bands who care more about drinking than they do about the supposed political message they preach in their music, and I skipped that scene and skipped town when I'd had enough. The band was an outlet for a lot of spite and a lot of rage, a lot of hatred, much of which was, on my part, directed towards the bands we played with and the crowds we played for. Being largely based on negativity, it was an entirely bittersweet time in my life. One thing I can be thankful for, however, is that this band kicked off my momentum towards being a serious musician, and my experience with those guys was a key element in my journey to coming into my own as a drummer. There's so much more to be told, so many more stories that need to see light, and I don't plan on stopping here. This is just, in a sense, my summation of the first few chapters of our history.
I didn't know where to post this, guys, but if you don't hate it or think it's the dumbest shit you've ever read, I'll post more as I finish it.
