1. Touring Bands: Unless you are Against Me, Slipknot, Jon Cougar Mellancamp or the Prince of Sudan, you are not doing us any favors (financially or otherwise) by showing up at our space. Please don’t be assholes, a lot of people jumped through lots of varying hoops to put this on for you, the least you could do is not be a dickhole and complain about the sound, stage, accommodations, or payment over 40 dollars.
2. Local Bands: You are not Bad Religion. As much as you may want to be, you are not on Fat Wreck Chords and kids in Japan aren’t rioting at the Virgin MegaStore to get your records. I know the last time you saw Bad Religion play they played for over an hour, but just because Greg Graffin did it, that does not mean that you can. While we are all real excited to hear your NoFX cover(s), lets try and keep this thing under 25 minutes, OK?
3. Touring Bands: Yeah, you are on tour, and that’s awesome. Chances are you might have come through our city once or twice before, and that’s awesome as well, thanks for coming back. But please don’t kid yourself into thinking that anyone here came to see your band, regardless of the label, PR Company, energy drink or religious deity you have backing your tour. Don’t be dicks to the local bands who drew out kids to pay 5 dollars to get into the show, especially since all of that will ultimately go in your gas tank or up your nose.
4. Local and Touring Bands: My band tours with a full PA that includes two Four-Space racks, an 8 space Rack, two 1x15 Main PA speaks on stands, two 1x18 Subwoofers, a guitar full stack, an 8x10 bass rig and a full drumset. Between the three of us, we can set this up and break it all down in under 15 minutes. You should have no problem setting up your backline in that much time. If you have some goofy costume you want to wear while you are playing, that’s cool! How about changing while the band before you is finishing up their set? If you’re jeans are so skin tight that you cant set up your guitar cabs then they are probably too tight to play guitar in anyway.
5. Local and Touring Bands: Hey, playing shows is about hanging out and meeting new people. So how about we watch each other while we play? No? Well, OK, can we at least not leave the venue and show before everyone else has played?
6. Local and Touring Bands: We all have that Ampeg 8x10 bass cabinet, and unless you are Lightening Bolt (google/youtube them, if you don’t know) and need something more, someone man up and let everyone else use his cab. There is no need to have 3 8x10’s sitting around the space.
7. Touring Bands: If you are a ska band, first, please rethink the decisions you have made in defining the sound of your band. Second, if you need three vocal mics (all on stands) and two microphones for your Saxophone and Trumpet players, how about bringing a couple of those things on tour with you? Please don’t assume that every space you play on tour will have a PA system and sound guy that can be compared to whatever venue you played in when you opened for Reel Big Fish last year.
8. Local Bands: Thanks for agreeing to play with this awesome touring band! It really helps them out because no one here really knows who they are. Would it be too much to ask though for you to ask your friends to stick around for the whole show and not leave after you play or not show up after all the other bands have come on? You’re friends can see you any other time you guys want to play in the city, wouldn’t it be beneficial for everyone to watch some new bands?
9. Local and Touring Bands: DIY Light shows are not cool. A couple strands of lights over the drumset? Yeah that’s totally alright and maybe a light or two on top of a guitar cab, that’s totally fine. But please don’t bring smoke machines, Christmas lights, strobe lights and a little weiner kid with a joystick to control it all. As I said before, DIY light shows aren’t cool. They just aren’t and are usually a pain in the ass for everyone involved. If you can't just play in a well lit room and still have your band be fun to watch, well, then, I think we all know where the problem is and it has nothing to do with the lighting.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
SPORTS!!
It's hard for anyone to believe this, but I am probably one of the busiest guys to ever have a completely wide-open schedule. It seems as though I never have any real commitment, but still can never find the time in the day to do the things that I really want to do (sleeping two more hours than necessary, listen to Torche’s Meanderthal at an obnoxious volume, sleep some more, sit on my couch watching TiVoed episodes of King of the Hill and America Dad while playing various forms of solitaire, etcetera…). But as I was laying on my couch drinking my (roughly) 5th Diet Coke of the day, there was a slight twinkle in the air that could only be described as one thing: silence. In some kind of freakish, all-the-lazy- Tuesday-afternoon-moons-aligning occurrence, for the first time in over a month I had my basement apartment completely and totally to myself. My girlfriend was at work, and my (sorta) roommate had (sorta) moved out, my dog hadn’t drug a possum in through the doggy door and no cat was running around in, and inevitably falling through, my ceiling tiles. I jolted up, reached for the television remote and turned to chanel 206, where I found the only thing that could satisfy a lazy, the-only-thing-I-have-to-acomplish-for-the-day-is-to-keep-myself-alive kind of day.
Sportscenter.
I love sports. My girlfriend does not. My former housemate did not. But from the second I realized that neither would be around until my ass began to ache from being sat on for too long, I dove head first into the world of sports that hasnt been much more than a fading image in the rearview mirror on the metaphorical road that is the small joys of Zachery Ryan Hobbs’ life.
---------
The 2009 NFL draft is this weekend and I have decided that there is no sporting “event” that I hate more than the NFL draft. There are many “events” that I find to be the sporting equivalent of watching grass grow, Soccer and all of its forms, Men’s indoor Volleyball, Curling, Croquet, Senior PGA, Tennis (Regular and Table), Polo (Water, Equestrian, Elephant, Segway, Golf Cart and yak polo all included), bobsledding and the event they show in the Olympics where the girls and gay guys jump around on a mat with a ribbon tied to a stick, just to name a few, all of which I would endure for hours on end if it meant I would never again have to listen to Mel Kiper and other so-called “Draft Experts” ramble on SportsCenter and PTI about their predictions of who is going to be drafted at what spot, and why they thing one team is fucking up with their picks and another team is getting gold for the price of a bail of hay and a gallon of lemonade.
My biggest complaint is that guys like Mel Kiper are only relevant for three months out of the year, which still seems like entirely too much of a limelight for people whose skill set is so incredibly narrow and specific that all they can do is predict when during the draft that Jason Campell is going to be called to the pro’s. After all the teams have made their moves and picks and all the dust has settled and we go back to waiting something like, 5 fucking months for the first kickoff of the season, Kiper will have a couple days to relish in the spotlight and grade teams on their draft before fading off to do whatever it is that Draft Experts do during the regular season. The problem is though, that for those three months, Kiper is God. He is the end-all be-all of the sports world, which seems to suggest that America just might actually put a little bit too much stock in this whole football thing. With the exception of the NBA draft, there is no other sport in America where we dedicate a whole weekend to highlighting talent that hasn’t actually done anything. We are so enamored with football that we would rather learn about the prospects than watch the NBA playoffs or nine innings of Oakland A’s baseball, and in most cases, would rather watch college players sit in a green room and eat various cheeses than go outside and actually toss the football around. I suppose it isn’t fair to blame all of America’s problems on Mel Kiper, but I sure would like to try. But regardless, these three months of Kiper reigning supreme over the sports analyst world adds very little to his modesty, and since he feels he can accurately predict the future of this upcoming NFL season, he can hold and present himself as one of the most important figures in Sports Commentary, even though he is completely useless for 9 months out of the year and barley worth anything for the 3 months he is relevant.
My real problem with the draft is how much stock everyone seems to put into when a person is drafted. I guess the theory looks good on paper, that the earlier you are drafted the more desirable of a player you are, ultimately reflecting on your talent as a player, but this never actually works in practice. Take for example the 2007 draft, when the Cleveland Browns traded with the Cowboys to nab Brady Quinn as the 22nd pick in the draft. Quinn was predicated to go way higher (almost certainly by Mel Kiper), and the whole sports world was shocked when he was looked over by the 21 other teams and their draft picks. Does this mean that Brady Quinn was the 22nd best football player in all of the 2007 draft? Well, I have certainly heard a lot more about Brady Quinn than JaMarcus Russel over the past 2 years, and certainly have seen more pieces and antidotes about Quinn than any of the 21 players drafted before them. Do you know who Ted Ginn Jr is? Me neither, but apparently he is exactly 13 draft spots better than Brady Quinn. The point of the matter is that everyone is going to be drafted, and the early draft picks that Mel Kiper and everyone else on ESPN.com drool over will probably not make so much as a rustle in the NFL during the 2009 season, but in 7 years or so we will be talking about how some 6th round draft pick ended up becoming a 4 time pro bowler, and would win 3 Super Bowls before he is 30. None of this matter, yet everyone gives a huge elephant sized turd about it all.
OK, so yeah, fuck you Mel Kiper, you are the source of everything that is wrong with America after all.
Sportscenter.
I love sports. My girlfriend does not. My former housemate did not. But from the second I realized that neither would be around until my ass began to ache from being sat on for too long, I dove head first into the world of sports that hasnt been much more than a fading image in the rearview mirror on the metaphorical road that is the small joys of Zachery Ryan Hobbs’ life.
The 2009 NFL draft is this weekend and I have decided that there is no sporting “event” that I hate more than the NFL draft. There are many “events” that I find to be the sporting equivalent of watching grass grow, Soccer and all of its forms, Men’s indoor Volleyball, Curling, Croquet, Senior PGA, Tennis (Regular and Table), Polo (Water, Equestrian, Elephant, Segway, Golf Cart and yak polo all included), bobsledding and the event they show in the Olympics where the girls and gay guys jump around on a mat with a ribbon tied to a stick, just to name a few, all of which I would endure for hours on end if it meant I would never again have to listen to Mel Kiper and other so-called “Draft Experts” ramble on SportsCenter and PTI about their predictions of who is going to be drafted at what spot, and why they thing one team is fucking up with their picks and another team is getting gold for the price of a bail of hay and a gallon of lemonade.
My biggest complaint is that guys like Mel Kiper are only relevant for three months out of the year, which still seems like entirely too much of a limelight for people whose skill set is so incredibly narrow and specific that all they can do is predict when during the draft that Jason Campell is going to be called to the pro’s. After all the teams have made their moves and picks and all the dust has settled and we go back to waiting something like, 5 fucking months for the first kickoff of the season, Kiper will have a couple days to relish in the spotlight and grade teams on their draft before fading off to do whatever it is that Draft Experts do during the regular season. The problem is though, that for those three months, Kiper is God. He is the end-all be-all of the sports world, which seems to suggest that America just might actually put a little bit too much stock in this whole football thing. With the exception of the NBA draft, there is no other sport in America where we dedicate a whole weekend to highlighting talent that hasn’t actually done anything. We are so enamored with football that we would rather learn about the prospects than watch the NBA playoffs or nine innings of Oakland A’s baseball, and in most cases, would rather watch college players sit in a green room and eat various cheeses than go outside and actually toss the football around. I suppose it isn’t fair to blame all of America’s problems on Mel Kiper, but I sure would like to try. But regardless, these three months of Kiper reigning supreme over the sports analyst world adds very little to his modesty, and since he feels he can accurately predict the future of this upcoming NFL season, he can hold and present himself as one of the most important figures in Sports Commentary, even though he is completely useless for 9 months out of the year and barley worth anything for the 3 months he is relevant.
My real problem with the draft is how much stock everyone seems to put into when a person is drafted. I guess the theory looks good on paper, that the earlier you are drafted the more desirable of a player you are, ultimately reflecting on your talent as a player, but this never actually works in practice. Take for example the 2007 draft, when the Cleveland Browns traded with the Cowboys to nab Brady Quinn as the 22nd pick in the draft. Quinn was predicated to go way higher (almost certainly by Mel Kiper), and the whole sports world was shocked when he was looked over by the 21 other teams and their draft picks. Does this mean that Brady Quinn was the 22nd best football player in all of the 2007 draft? Well, I have certainly heard a lot more about Brady Quinn than JaMarcus Russel over the past 2 years, and certainly have seen more pieces and antidotes about Quinn than any of the 21 players drafted before them. Do you know who Ted Ginn Jr is? Me neither, but apparently he is exactly 13 draft spots better than Brady Quinn. The point of the matter is that everyone is going to be drafted, and the early draft picks that Mel Kiper and everyone else on ESPN.com drool over will probably not make so much as a rustle in the NFL during the 2009 season, but in 7 years or so we will be talking about how some 6th round draft pick ended up becoming a 4 time pro bowler, and would win 3 Super Bowls before he is 30. None of this matter, yet everyone gives a huge elephant sized turd about it all.
OK, so yeah, fuck you Mel Kiper, you are the source of everything that is wrong with America after all.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
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