REVERSE DOTTY

As you can see below, our sound has changed somewhat. We’ve been listening exclusively to black metal these past few weeks and it is hoped that the Reverse Dotty legion will embrace this new direction.

"BRING TO ME HER BLOOD THUS THE CARRION CHILD SURVIVE"

The show was fantastic, thanks a milli to everyone who came to see us! The new songs all went over really well — even though every song was brand new, we barely messed up at all. Surprised myself even. And guess what; we’ve already got two more in the oven for the next show.

We spent so long getting the album all tracked and mixed and everything that having some new material was WAY overdue and It feels super great to be creating again.

yay…

er, I mean..
YAAAAYYY!!!!!!  🙂 🙂 🙂

We will be debuting a set of all brand new songs this Thursday!   We’re really excited for these new tracks and hope to see everyone in the whole world at the show: Ash Street, downtown PDX, Oct 1st, 21+, 10pm!

FIRST OF ALL, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CARL AND MELODY. GOOD JOB GUYS YOU EARNED IT OR WHATEVER.

OK, anyway, we’re overdue to write some new stuff, especially now that the lineup has been changed around a bit. So, we aren’t going to be playing any shows or anything until we have at least enough songs to play a whole new set. We are simply delighted by the prospect of breaking deez nuts off on some new tits.

PORTLAND June 24th

We played at Slabtown, and this was our first show with Damaris. We figured it would be good to test the waters with the new lineup before leaving town, and it went really well. It turned out that our sound guy would be Levi Lunde (who mixed our first record in 07) so that was a cool surprise. We were all excited to be playing with Damaris who we have all known for years. Our band has always been made up of friends first, so with the departure of Bobby and Bryan, the rest of us really wanted to keep it that way. Bryan had agreed to finish these last few shows with us to ease the transition. We played with The Hand That Bleeds, and that was pretty awesome, plus Flaspar was supposed to play too but they canceled. There was a silver lining in their not showing up though because not only did it mean we got out of there in time to catch The Hunches’ last show at East End, but on the way there we hit the Burnside bridge as it was being raised. We got stuck next to the Red Bull car while we waited for a sailboat to pass through and we all got free Red Bull!! Thanks Flaspar!

SEATTLE June 25th

Things started out pretty good on Thursday — we still don’t have a van so although we were hoping to borrow a vehicle from somebody (OF COURSE that didn’t work out) we ended up having to rent one. I put in a reservation for a minivan, but it turned out when I arrived, they only had one minivan (and two minivan reservations) so they asked if I wanted a free upgrade to the premium SUV. It was a massive Ford Expedition with a USB port and wood paneling and stuff, plus it said POWERED BY MICROSOFT on the console. So, shit, why not? Well, I found out later that the reason why not was that the stupid back seats weren’t removable, and because of that, there wasn’t quite enough room for us and our gear… so we had to leave our main bass cab (and the hi-chair we sit on at the drums) behind. No big deal, we’ll make it work.

I figured it would probably be a good idea to check the email one last time before leaving, and post a bulletin for the show in Seattle, and stuff like that and GOD DAMN IT!!! We had an email from the booking guy at the venue (that we had booked over 2 months in advance) saying that he was canceling the show because he had never actually set anything up due to “a rare brain disease.” Well that’s fucking great, thanks for the 6 hours of notice. We decided to head north and try our best to just pick up a show on the way.. I was wishing we could have fit another amp for vocals in case we wanted to play somewhere without a PA.

About an hour into the drive we got word that the impossible is possible:

We ended up at this place called The Morgue which is basically a clubhouse for the Seattle Pyrate Punx. They were super fucking awesome to us and set us up with a show there and even tried to get a few people out for it. Melody called her friend Kenzie who came and opened up the show for us, and it was really good. There was hardly anyone there because it was an impromptu show, so we played for under 10 people.. but we were super happy that we got to play, and we met some really rad people. At some point the zipper on my pants broke but I found a safety pin on the stage so I pinned my fly partially closed with it. This seemed like a good solution at the time but by the next day I had poked myself in the dick on 5 different occasions. The dick, for those who don’t know, is like a Slinky of nerves.

We ended up crashing at Kenzie’s super neat loft and drinking beer and talking about all kinds of deep and meaningful stuff… and inevitably about how great Discovery* is. That tends to happen. I slept most of the night in the Expedition to keep an eye on the gear but at some point I woke up freezing my ass off and went back inside.



* as in Daft Punk, duh.

BELLINGHAM June 26th

We woke at a greasy diner waiting for greasy food, and then stopped by Bryan’s mom’s house on the way up to Bellingham to use the internet and stuff. When we got up North, we hit Chuckanut Drive and went to the beach where we messed with crabs and starfish and climbed around on the rocks like monkeys trapped in the bodies of donkeys.

I got some new shoes and pants (i had to get new pants because i kept getting dick sores in the old ones) at Value Village, and we had Vietnamese food for lunch.. Then we still had some time to kill so we went bowling. I was kind of bewildered that I couldn’t find any bowling balls that fit my hand — this has never been a problem before at any other bowling alley, thus it would seem that the entire bowling population of Bellingham either have custom balls or tiny fingers. My top score was 113. Not my best, but as long as I hit 3 digits I’m happy.

We showed up at the venue right on time due to being model citizens, but the booker/sound guy was not there yet and neither were any other bands. We loaded in and after about 45 minutes of sitting around we decided to get a 6 pack and go down to the beach. There was a refreshingly cold breeze blowing off the water and we were bombarded by extremely agile fighter jet swallows. They were really cool looking as they threatened Melody by skimming the beach and the driftwood and the piles of seaweed (and us) at supersonic speeds, and I realized that Red Stripe is a pretty good beer for summer time.

We were playing at The Rogue Hero that night — I had been to this place a couple of times before and heard that it’s generally always crowded on a Friday night so we were excited. The bar itself is pretty cool, though we had to play first so there weren’t very many people there for our set. After we had played for 30 minutes the sound guy let us know it was time to wrap it up. So of course, out of respect for the other bands, we blazed through two last songs and packed up our shit as quickly as possible. Apparently we were on a tight schedule and the next band wanted to use our drum kit. Sure, no problem!

Here’s some live footage:

It turned out that we left the stage just as people really started arriving at the bar which is always a bummer situation, but that shit just happens sometimes so we didn’t have a problem getting out of the way. The totally uncool part was that the other bands (both local) then went on to play for nearly an hour and a half each, to a packed (PACKED!!) bar. So wait, not only did we have to go first, but we also had to cut our normal set short so that both local bands could have DOUBLE the amount of time we got? I think it’s pretty cool when venues and local bands are considerate of touring bands, which I know sounds crazy but that’s just how I feel.

After the second band was finished, it turned out that the third band wanted to “showcase” our kit too. We are happy to help out other bands and share equipment whenever possible, but I didn’t really want these bands to “showcase” anything to be perfectly honest… It was like watching the Barenaked Ladies get their calf tats and flip flops greased up with hemp balm by Dave Matthews’ bongo playing cousin in the WWU greenhouse during the third year of his Horticulture major while an underwater boombox burbles Third Eye Blind from the koi pond. Of course we extended them the use of our kit, but I will add that at no point did it get “showcased”.

Next, in what must have been intended as a really fucked up joke, the bartender actually wrote himself a $5 tip on top of my $10.50 tab and closed out my card. Then he gave it to me and said “That’s all taken care of for ya!” which I thought must mean I had gotten hooked up for being in the band.. so I was like “oh awesome!! thanks man!!” ..I happened to be carrying some cymbals and stuff at the time so I just stuffed it in my pocket and didn’t see the receipt until the next day when I went to fill the monstrous Expedition gas tank. After successfully avoiding the part where, screaming, I pull a whole row of petrol pumps out of the earth and throw them into the street, I calmed myself and shared what I had found with the rest of the band. The two or three extra dollars beyond what I would have tipped anyway may not be that big of a deal compared to the $70 we just dropped in the tank, but the five of us agreed that despite our combined years of heavy bar frequency we had never seen this happen before. That’s because any bartender worth their margarita salt knows that this is COMPLETELY FUCKED.

Alright, I need to meditate for a moment to conjure up a description of the coagulated shit-blood river of lamb’s milk that was our Tacoma experience. I don’t mean to be a big whiner, overall we had a good time playing at The Rogue despite having our set cut short, and this was also the only show that we actually got paid for on the whole trip so there was that. Getting a decent pay-out is always very much appreciated! Plus I didn’t poke my dick with anything sharp all night.

TACOMA June 27th

I woke up freezing my ass off again, this time on a trampoline. The night before, we had driven up to Custer to sleep at Tucker’s parents’ house and after wildly yelling over the Expedition’s system (blasting Alopecia, aka the best album of last year) we found ourselves unable to keep quiet or contain our giggling in the stark silence of the living room floor. So, we grabbed our blankets and pillows and went to sleep outside on the giant trampoline. This was a great idea until I woke up shivering, coated in a heavy breading of ice cold mountain dew. I went back into the house and claimed the couch, where I got 5 EXCELLENT hours of sleep.

We had bagels in the morning, and figured we should refrain from buying any more food today because I had gotten word that Club Impact (our Tacoma venue) was going to feed us dinner. Club Impact certainly made an impact on us, that much can be said right off the bat.

In my defense, although there were some hints that had tipped me off to the Christian nature behind Club Impact, most of us had gone to some relatively cool wholesome youth-groupy type stuff when we were kids and would really love to have seen a band like us there. Also, I hadn’t set up any other all-ages shows for this trip so when the offer came along, I was like yeah, awesome, cool! Still, I regret not looking into the place a bit more because in the end I was responsible for dragging the rest of the band into the belly of the beast.

First on the itinerary was the band meeting+dinner at 6. This went fine, a guy got on stage and made a speech about how Club Impact is all about respect and that if you give respect, you’ll get respect. OK, sounds great. Sloppy joes!!! So far so good!

Then, Melody and Damaris noticed that out of 6 (!) bands there was only one other girl there, and she turned out to be just somebody’s girlfriend. This lead to also noticing that mostly everyone else were teenagers.. How exactly did we end up here? It suddenly dawned on me that we have this one-sentence review up on our myspace page, which for some reason referred to us as “a group of 18-19 year olds.” We only put it up there because it seemed amusing at the time, but it may have just gotten a whole lot funnier. I can’t prove for a fact that this played a role in our being asked to play the show, but I think it’s a really strong theory, and clearly the most likely explanation.. kinda like evolution.

After dinner we went to get some coffee in an effort to help push them sloppy joes on through, and watched a good soft chunk of The Fast and the Furious (or possibly one of the sequels) move by on mute with subtitles. Meanwhile the owner of the coffee shop updated us on what was going on in the story. It was clear that he had seen it before… possibly many many times. Eventually the clock chimed showtime, so we headed back to the place. He was evidently disappointed that we weren’t going to finish out the movie, but it just looked so damn well done that I wanted to watch it with sound.

The first band was Garron-T, fronted by this kid Garron who is basically Jimi Hendrix in the body of a kid named Garron. He totally ruled and he was probably like.. 17? Best band of the night. He even played and sang a twisted version of Billy Jean all by himself for MJ. We talked to him after their set — he said he had checked out our myspace, and he wanted to know if we were really signed. We just kinda looked at each other for a moment, like, what’s that? Oh right, SIGNED! to Spotty Records! Well, we paid like 65 bucks to register a business name with the state of Oregon so hell yeah we’re signed.

After that we went up the street and found some stairs leading up to a pretty cool gay bar. We had a quick shot there and headed back to check out the next couple of bands. No comment.

Half way through the bill (as in, directly before our set) was when they got up on stage and launched into the evangelizing. They informed us that we need to sign up for their mailing list because there is only one true god and it is the same god who rained fire on Jebadiahovaranimo or whoever, and it only got worse from there. We had thought earlier that something like this might happen, but it wasn’t the hopeful jesus-laced pep talk I imagined. This was pumping from a much scarier vein. Did we really just get our eternal souls threatened with… brimstone?? Jesus. Just call it sulfur already, this voodoo stuff is confusing enough as it is. Luckily (for me) I missed the majority of it because I was out in the car hunting around for a missing piece of the hi-hat stand. When I got back, the rest of the homies were discussing whether or not we should pull out of the show, and make a run for our lives. We decided instead to play.

Now, the entire audience was dressed exactly the same in these white Old Navy hoodies they had passed out to everyone (it sort of looked like a fresh-faced-high-school-sports version of a KKK rally, if you can picture that) and as we set up our equipment, these unbelievably bizarre videos started playing above our heads. Most of them were about pretty regular stuff like not drinking or smoking, but the approach and style of the content were so strange! It really felt like we had found ourselves in a secret cult made up of SPACE ALIENS who are able to assume human form, but have found difficulty settling into our society due to a profound gap in their understanding of Earth beings. I got the feeling that our incredulous laughter at these videos was not appreciated by the sound guy. I guess that’s one possible explanation for why there was a constant and heavy LF feedback throughout most of our set while he just stood there, arms crossed. Of course, it’s also possible he just didn’t know what to do about it.

The last guy on the bill was a solo act also from Portland, and he was a pretty nice guy so we stuck it out for the rest of the bands. In the two hours between asking the sound guy if it was OK to unplug after our set, and the time we left, nobody from Club Impact had a word to say to us except to let us know that only one person had come to see us (to whoever that was: thank you so much for coming, and, sorry!) and that they didn’t feel giving us our hard earned $1 was worth the trouble. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s what it came down to. See, Club Impact is a racket. Their scheme works like this: The local bands are asked to pre-sell tickets and everyone who pays at the door is asked which band they came to see. The cover is $8 and for each person or ticket sold, you get a dollar. So if 20 people come to see your band, you just scored 20 big ones! Club Impact takes care of the other $140. I feel a bit embarrassed to have taken part in such a scenario, and especially to have been responsible for setting it up. This show really reminded me that it’s important to take note of the way a place operates when setting something up.

Here’s some more live footage:

To summarize the experience; even though this show was all my fault, it doesn’t change the fact that these people are a bunch of poopycreeps. Sure, they make a point to remind us that they are volunteering their time, but that does not mean they are cool or nice. They don’t give a damn about music or art, they are just there to corral young people into their weird clubhouse to evangelize them with weirdness and generate revenue to further their weird operation. The way it looks to me is that they are taking advantage of starry-eyed young kids who just want to play in a band, and they offer to provide a means to do so but they have entirely ulterior motives.. and the whole thing just FEELS really bogus. I have to say though, I was surprised to find out places like this are still out there pulling off regular events.. I suppose this place can get away with a bit more since they are doing the lord’s bidding and all, but it makes me wonder when all the kids forgot how to rent out a damn Eagles hall like we did when I was in high school.

We left feeling defeated and somewhat violated, but thankfully the night wasn’t quite finished.

We were headed home, but decided that ending the trip on such a brown note was not good for us so we diverted into Olympia for some relief. We decided to check out Le Voyeur, which was perfect. None of us had ever been there before but after what we had just endured, it felt like a home away from home. There was a band setting up in the back and we looked at the menu for a good while trying to agree on something cheap we could split, until we found out the kitchen was closed.

Meanwhile, Damaris had gone to talk to the band that was setting up (Quadrillion, from Seattle) and they were sympathetic to our story. Well, they said.. tell you what. It’s getting pretty late, and there aren’t really any people back here.. but if you guys want to play, just watch us and we’ll watch you. That sounded like a fuckin hell of a deal and just like that our night had been reborn! They played a really high energy set and it was just what we needed, like, spiritually man. It was such a relief and we all danced like we really needed the exorcise. I wish I would have asked if we could use some of their stuff (which happened to be an eerily similar setup to ours) because in the end we ran out of time setting up and didn’t get to play. I guess they have a noise curfew of 1:30 there, and they said we were welcome to try and play until then… but it was 1:15 and we knew we’d be lucky to finish setting up and get through a single song in that amount of time… So, we loaded all our shit back into the car, definitely let down but still in high spirits. At least we tried, and in the end had found some bit of redemption. Damaris saves!

The staff at Le Voyeur were very cool in light of the situation and hooked us up with complimentary refreshments as though we had played. Melody tried to explain, “wait, no, we weren’t technically even booked here tonight!” but they took care of us anyway. I really love it when places are down with being cool.

And Bryan quit the band.. He is moving to Seattle for a job / girlfriend thing. He will be sticking it out for the next few shows to ease the transition as we welcome Damaris into the band/cult. I am really happy to be playing with her, she is totally fun and hilarious which means this will work out perfectly. Also, her playing and singing are great which is totally a bonus.

No joke, for real. I think most of what we have been doing really isn’t what he is into musically*, and I figure he probably realized that trying to lug the rest of us down whatever specific path he wants to take it wouldn’t be the best use of all our energies.. or something like that.. so I suppose it’s for the best in the long run, but he will be missed. Bobby is still on board for our side project, The Ghastly Whiteness — so don’t worry about a thing. WE’LL MAKE IT THROUGH THIS!

*bobby only listens to nine inch nails, and nothing else. sometimes he talks in his sleep and i think last time he was dreaming about jet skiing in a fishnet bodysuit with trent reznor.