August 2000

WARSTARS
with
Unidentified goth-chick
on a piano
Medicine Hat Gallery, Portland, OR

* * *

After the first show in southern Oregon, Andy moved the Warstars north to Portland, Oregon. Kreist Gryndor would follow a year later. In the meantime, Andy Warstar began advertising for other musicians to fill the gap.

Andy soon discovered guitarist/drummers Adam Ion and Peter Francis Bolenbaugh III who were both enthusiastic about being part of Warstars. This was a promising stage in the Warstars evolution.

The Warstars began practicing twice a week. That summer, the Warstars recorded their first demo on a 4-track in Adam Ion's basement. After the demo was recorded, Andy Warstar scheduled the next Warstars gig.

Warstar soon landed the band a gig at the Medicine Hat... a venue in the run-down, but burgeoning Alberta arts district.That evening, Andy Warstar was running a terrible fever, and didn't tell his bandmates. After the Warstars set up their equipment, there was a lot of hub-bub about the tangled microphone cables that the previous sound guy had improperly wound up. This put the sound guy in a foul mood, which may have influenced things for the worse.

Shortly after set-up, this goth chick gets on an electric piano and starts singing some operatic type stuff (in between huffing tobacco and downing drinks.) At one point in her set, she remarked that she was bedazzled by all of the Warstars sparkeling guitars.

Then the Warstars came on. What they didn't know is that the drunken hippie sound guy, didn't know his head from his ass about volume levels. Then Andy Warstars's distortion box died... Then the Warstars and the sound guy could not help remedy the horrible dissonance between the amplifiers on such a cramped stage...

That's when the Warstars seemed to realize that there was no saving the show. In the middle of the show, and with no warning, Andy Warstar dropped to his knees in the middle of "The Melvins Made Me Deaf" and using the last bit of energy left in him, burned up his fretboard with a cock-rock style guitar solo. Shortly thereafter, he screamed into the mic, "Thankyou very much!!! We're the Warstars!"

The usual heckler was shouting "You suck!" or something to that effect. He obviously doesn't understand Art. Legend has it that Andy Warstar had a nervous breakdown after the show, which is pretty cool... Huh huh... mm... huh huh... Legend also has it that Adam Ion remarked to Warstar after the show, "That sure was one fabulous disaster!"