December
17th, 2005
WARSTARS
@
The Vinyl Club
Ashland, OR
* * *
With Josh (Eddy Warstar) out of commission, Andy and Jason
(now Captain James T. Warstar) were a duo again. And just
when Andy had been getting everyone to take on "Warstar"
as a last name!
The next venue Andy and James T. decided to play was The Vinyl
Club in Ashland. Back when the club used to be called "Daddio's"
and was a punk rock dive, many great punk bands from back
in the day had played there. Andy saw Nomeansno there some
years ago. He had also noted, due to the low ceilings, how
great the sound was in there.
Booking Warstars at The Vinyl Club had been a bit of a fiasco.
First off, The Vinyl Club misprinted the poster for the show,
having including photos of the previous drummer. Andy thought
is was funny, and the poster stayed that way, although Andy
also felt it might be some kind of omen.
Warstars was actually supposed to play The Vinyl Club the
evening after the Lithia Park show. Andy had called down to
the club the night before and the bartender told Warstars
to show up around 10:30 pm.
So the night after the Lithia Park show, Warstars, with their
first groupie entourage in tow, headed down to The Vinyl Club
and loaded in. After unloading all their gear, the club owner
says "Oh man! I'm sorry! I thought you guys were Warsaw!
Oh shit. Oh yeah, and my partner says it's too late for you
guys to play..."
Jacked.
Max, one of the club owner's down at The Vinyl was actually
pretty cool about it all, and offered to reschedule Warstars
for a later date. Andy then scheduled Warstars for about a
month off. At some point during that month, Andy and James
T. had a disagreement over rent or something (bandmates and
roommates) and Andy canceled the gig.
After Andy and James T. patched things up, Andy re-scheduled
the gig again. For this gig Andy and James T. planned
on playing two sets of music: a clean channel set, and a dirty
channel "punk rock" set. Warstars planned on modeling
the Vinyl Club show after the Siskiyou Micropub show. Additionally,
Andy Warstar took charge of printing out the posters for this
re-scheduled Vinyl Club gig himself.
Andy and Captain James T. showed up at the Vinyl Club the
night of the 17th at the agreed upon time with two very polished,
well rehearsed sets of music. But no one was there to open
the club.
After waiting around for a half an hour, Max shows up and
says that the bartender was late for work, that he was supposed
to let Warstars in to set up. He let's Warstars in to set
up (now 45 minutes late). Then Andy and the Captain begin
to rock.
The first set went exceptionally well. Andy had his friend
Terry on hand filming the whole show, and doing an exceptional
job. All the while, Andy had the creeping feeling that something
else was going to go wrong. Throughout the show, Andy mentioned
to the crowd (mostly Vinyl Club regulars) to "stick around
for the second set", an omen in itself.
Then, right after the last song in the first set, the bartender
announces "10 minutes guys..."
Warstars had no idea why they were being cut off and were
quite pissed about it. Lugging around hundreds of pounds of
equipment only to play for half and hour kinda sucks. Sometimes
it's cool... This time it sucked. Having expectations often
leads to disappointment.
So apparently, The Vinyl Club had double booked Warstars with
some DJ from a radio station from Medford without telling
them. Instead of playing for "10 more minutes",
Andy made sure to stretch the last few choice songs out as
long as possible.
And, as if to send the message to Warstars to finish up A.S.A.P.,
the bartender shut the lights off, and by doing so, ruining
the last 10 minutes of Warstars video footage of the performance.
That was really the icing on the cake, especially when Warstars
forked out a chunk of change to have a professional camera
man record everything.
Warstars finished off the show with four raging songs from
their second "punk" set, including the debut performance
of "U.S. Blues" by the Grateful Dead, done punk
style. This show was also the debut performance of "Microwave
Burrito" and "Two Thumbs Up".
The recording of Warstars at The Vinyl Club shows the tightness,
versatility and professionalism Warstars exhibits when under
pressure. Andy Warstar thanks Jen for showing up.
To see the concert poster,
click HERE.
SETLIST
Soundcheck:
U.S. Blues
1. The Wasp
3. The Wizard Of The Cardboard Tube
4. White Girls On Skateboards
5. Helpless
6. Microwave Burrito
7. Dangerous Hippie
8. Agenda
9. Ghengis Khan
10. Birthday Boy
11. Two Thumbs Up
12. Kill Yourself Now
13. Galileo
14. Virginia's Vagina
15. U.S. Blues
|
©2000 Studio
57 |