Last night (Tuesday.) I saw the beloved Foxy Shazam at The Luna Bean. The show turnout was medicore, but it was a weeknight. Opening the show I saw probably the strangest performance...or one of the most unique.


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The Vaginal Vigilantes played first....even though it was only one guy (whose name slips me.) He loaded the stage up with posters, a foosball table, microwaves, dolls, bows, arrows, etc. and I felt like I was watching a guy trip acid in his room. He made backing tracks and sang the most random things from high pitched screeches to surprisingly solid screams, his entertaining fluster of insanity kept me saying "what the hell?" in a weird way. Definitely a unique performance, although he seemed to be slightly restrained. The music definitely wasn't good - it was just fun as hell.

After The Vaginal Vigilantes played, Never Speak Defeat went up. A surprisingly talented and technical hardcore/metal band. The strongest player in all aspects (technicality, stage show, etc.) was easily the bass player. Although they were good for the genre, I really felt like they didn't belong on the shows bill.

Next the amazing Foxy Shazam went up and did their thing. The singer was insane. Schizoid ADHD Acid Rock on Cocaine! Something like that. The whole band put on an amazing show and delivered. After they were done I got to interview them and was very glad with the results. I was a bit intimidated, but they turned out to be some of the most genuine, kind guys.

Afterwards I had a nightcap and rang in Valentines Day at Denny's with Staci, Caitlyn, and Matt (and complimentary cheese-fries, thank you Caitlyn!) I watched someone almost get fired. It was kind of cool.

Great night, woke up the next day (today) and took the ASVAD or whatever it's called just to see what careers I would be good in. Who would expect that It's going to come back suggesting something dealing with english or writing. I don't know why I took it, however since it was a half day I only had to go to calculus (only? 1.5 hours of hell. Oh well.)

I need to go do homework, but that was my night. Now I think I have strep throat.

Can't win em all.
-brian
1:53 AM

Current Location: The Room of Living
Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: Ron Jeremy by The Vaginal Vigilantes

Me and my friend Dylan missed our launch date by a mile. In fact, the website isn't *up* yet but we found a template we're going to work with. I felt kind of lame about this, but what makes it especially pain stakingly lame is friend and author Ned Vizzini made a really great post on his Livejournal about it.

Fuck me, eh?

Although the site isn't up, this hasn't slowed down my progress. Trust me, this is happening. It will be good. The content is great.

Saturday I interviewed Ghost of a Fallen Age, Esme, and Akissforjersey. Tommorow night I have a "bigger" interview posed ahead for crazy-rock-demigods Foxy Shazam! (I put them on a plane with Chasing Victory in minor bigness.)

Ghost of a Fallen Age is one of those bands that as soon as the singer opens his mouth you have two immediate body functions that overwhelm your body:
1. A desire to shit your pants.
2. A desire to piss your pants.

The singer unleashed some sick gutterals and as I turned to say to my friend Alex "Man these guys are amazing." Mid sentence the singer leaps across two innocent patrons and starts screaming in my face. This is where the shit your pants factor comes in - I was scared (in a good way albeit.)

As the performance continued I was convinced he'd slow down, but his insanity continued on a level I've never seen before. I suspected he had rabies (see picture below) as he constantly jumped into the crowd, yelling in everyones faces, and did one of the most manly things in the world:

He
First: Hocks a huge loogie in the air. Not the kind of gentle one, but a boomerangish one that one end is larger than the other, swinging in an akward slow motion way.
Second: Stares at it mid air.
Third: Catches it.
Fourth: Gives it a disgusted, overwhelmed look (which he had whenever he wasn't singing)
and Fifth: Wipes it...ON HIS SHIRT!

Imagine this for 30 minutes, matched with surprisingly technical blastbeats and sweeping guitar solos so good the pissing yourself part came well into play.


Ten minutes later I was sitting in the van with the same guy I thought was going to rip my head off. He was wearing an alabama hat, smiling and shaking my hand with the same one that caught the huge green lopsided loogie and wiped it on his shirt.

Nice guy, seriously.

The other bands were amazing, but Ghost of a Fallen Age is shit ridiculous live. I don't think I've seen a band like that....ever.

Esme soothed me with bubble gum warm fuzzy dual vocalists (with great range and sound) and Akissforjersey delivered a dissonant, meaningful performance. All in all it was a great night and I'm very happy with (most) of the content I got.

It's coming this week. I promise. Dylan promises. Don't kill me please.

Tommorow night, again, I'm interviewing Foxy Shazam! who have a great following and a supposedly amazing live show. At least, I'm planning to if they say yes, and bands generally do.

-Brian Heim
(1:53 AM)

Current Location: NC
Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: The French Passion of Animality Opera by Foxy Shazam!

The show last night at the Luna Bean was interesting, to say the least.

The opening band, 14 Hour Drive, was interesting. This is a huge misinterpretation of their sound, but I got a Horse the Band meets 311 kind of vibe. Just the singing aspect, and the music wasn't as frantic. They were fun, but their songs were a little too long to fully hold my interest. (They weren't epic songs, they just lasted too long.) They were cool. Their lead singer and guitarist reminded me of two people I know (Ryan and Justin.) They're taking a break to write a new album.

Then The International Drive played. They're rapidly becoming one of my favorite bands and they're great, great guys. They played a brand new song (well, they played it at the brewery too.) The dynamics to the song are really awe inspiring. They've evolved a lot as a band, if you listen to the earlier stuff they wrote. It's all good though. You can tell they've started to really "click" more than ever.

After the I-drive played, I caught up with Sid, George, and Mike from Yearling and interviewed them. Mid way through, Seth came into the van. The interview was good - long though. About 23 minutes. I caught the end of A Cadence of Sorts' set. It was good. I met up with a three of their members and had an interview.

During the show my good friend, Dylan, was being ridiculously crazy. It provided for a night of laughter. He unleashed a scream that sounded like a banshee. There were people from Goldsboro there. I love seeing people from the 'boro at shows. It feels kind of comforting. It also makes me miss local shows horribly. Nobody moves around at most shows...maybe I'm just bias to boro shows but oh well.

Me, Staci, Ben, and Steven were almost CRYING the whole time while Dylan was being so ridiculous.

The website is still kicking off February 1st. I don't know what to expect, traffic wise, for the site. The material is good though, trust me on that. I should have banners soon. I know nobody is reading this, but oh well.
-Brian

Current Location: the hizzouse
Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Woah! Shut it down - The Acacia Strain

Tomorrow I have the state administered End of Course Test for U.S. History. Instead of studying, which, naturally, is the smart thing to do, I decided to prepare in another way.

Pirates.

Yes, pirates. Pirates know everything. They're only second to Ninjas on the food chain. For real reference, Chuck Norris once tried to fight a pirate, but instead he popped a boner thinking about Johnny Depp and his head exploded. That's how great pirates are.

Who knows more about history than a pirate? Nobody. Pirates MAKE history, they don't need to study it. Who do you think REALLY killed JFK? Stone henge? How about who really sank the Lusitania?

So I sat down with the paper which I gladly found on Stumble! (the best web browsing enhancement ever probably) and began to cut and tape.

Before I knew it, Puffy Shirt Bill was made, assembled, and quite the beauty.

"Argh, these chandaleres be dusty!"

It ain't easy (bein' greasy.) PSB and ME!

Like father like son.

The final showdown.


Isn't procrastination fun? He holds my digital voice recorder, so I guess he's kind of useful

Tags: piartes
Current Location: Blackbeard's favorite state
Current Mood: YARRRRGH!
Current Music: Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle O' Rum - A pirates life for me!

I got home at roughly 2:15 PM from VA Beach, just in time to get to the brewery on time. So I called dylan, and we ere on our way at about 2:45. The ride up there went fine, mapquest guided us well.

Once we got to the show, The International Drive was the first band to play. Brewery shows (from my limited experience) never start on time. So if you're a few minutes...or a half an hour....or 45 minutes late, don't sweat it.

Anyway, The International Drive was A-MAZING, as always. This was my second time seeing them, and they definitely delivered the goods. After them, Aniston got on to play. They have a big raleigh following, I found out today...actually, it was a surprise to them too. They were decent. It was my first time seeing them. I was impressed the most by their guitarist, who isn't really showcased in the music on their myspace. He was quite good. The band was pretty tight in general.

After them, the almighty Love&Reverie (who I previously interviewed) got on stage and delivered as always. They weren't as good as they were at the merge, but two of their members (Chris and Zach I believe) are balls sick. They still put on a hell of a show, and even played two songs for the goldsboro crowd.

After Love&Reverie I grabbed a hold of Anistons lead singer, Brett, and their drummer, Blake. We went to their van and did an interview. It was pretty good. It gives an interesting insight as to what it was like to go from NC hardcore favorites, Call It Quits!, to the rock group Aniston.

Afterwards I hung out behind the brewery, waiting for Seth from The International Drive to be found. He agreed to meet up, so I talked with Hessler, Chris, and Noah from Love&Reverie along with a member of Yearling (whose name slips me at the moment.) We also talked with Aniston's bassist, Cody, about his rig and stuff. It was pretty interesting. I learned a little more about how Tragic Hero Records helps their bands out. THey seem like a really upstanding label.


Chris was very sick. I felt bad for him, he was laying in the back of the bands trailer and looked half dead. Finally Seth (lead singer/guitarist) for The International Drive and Chris, the drummer, came out and we went to their van. Instead of sitting inside, we stood outside. They were smoking and we just started talking to get warmed up.

The interview went very well. They were cool guys and I'd love to meet up with them again. If at all possible, go to shows for them. THey need the money!

I missed Mercy Mercedes due to the interviews.

On the way home, me and dylan managed to turn a 1.5 hour trip into about 2 and a half hours long. We ended up driving in circles and eventually just called my mom to get it straight. I had never been so happy to see "Wayne County" on a sign in my life. I wondered if we'd ever get home. We, thankfully, didn't run out of gas and got to stop in Fremont to fill up. The gas-station there is always...weird? feeling. I always expect to get robbed in it, and it's not a shady place at all.

Rule I learned today: Just because someone works in a gas station, they DO NOT know how to get directions.

I got directions from two different foreigners and a 40 year old semi-milf, none of who knew what Goldsboro was. I think they might have thought I was talking about Greensboro...I don't know, but they definitely had no clue what was up.

Now I'm here. Dylan is on the phone. I'm soon to go to sleep, and in the morning Me and Dylan got some CSS coding to do along with some definitely overdue jamming.

Thanks
-Brian

ps I'm falling in love with Donna the Buffalo at hte moment. THe bluegrass/rock/jamband demi-gods. Check them out if at all possible.

Current Location: Dylan's crib
Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Donna the Buffalo's Current Theme.

It's 8:21 here and my weekend vacation (gathering, if you say) is wrapping up. I'm about to go shower and finish packing my bags so I can get home in time...for the newest interviews!

That's right, my friend Jes pulled through and we're road-trippin' it to raleigh. Does one and a half hours count as a road trip? Eh...we'll pretend it does. Anyway, there I plan on interviewing The International Drive and Aniston (Aka the entire catalogue for Disco Technology Records. A proud moment in 1:53 AM history! haha)

It's a matinee show at the brewery with Aniston, Love&Reverie, Mercy Mercedes and The International Drive. It should be a great show, thank goodness it was a matinee show. Otherwise I probably wouldn't make it.

This semester is basically finished, school wise, and all I have left is the state required US History EOC which I feel great about.

Realistically, the site will be fully up by February 1. I decided I wanted to get good content instead of rushing and not delivering the sort of opening I want to. I'm hoping to at least be able to interview three more bands. If you guys live near me and are going to shows, I'd definitely love to come along.

Alright, I'll tell about the show tonight.
-Brian

1:53 AM

The show Friday night at the merge was amazing. Some snags have come up for the website, such as switching to a new host and working out design kinks, but I have three interviews. I'll probably be getting two more this Sunday, if things pan out.

I've transcribe the My Epic interview. THey were so amazing that I had to interview the singer, to help get the word out. The website, it's seeming, will have support from the bands. Love&Reverie and My Epic both said they'd post bulletins about it.

I don't want to fully "debut" the website until there is enough material to attract people and for them to want more. This means I have to write more. I'm considering putting my paper I wrote for English about Pornography up. It's pretty humerous...and educational.

Today I decided I'm very proud of some of the bands my home state, North Carolina, has fostered and sent out into the world. Between the Buried and Me is definitely one of our state's bands that we proudly claim to be ours. They're single-handedly changing the face of hardcore. Don't just listen to Alaska, although that's a ridiculously progressive amazing album. Everything they've done is good, Self titled, the silent circus, alaska, all of it is absolutely amazing.

Exam week is coming up, but I dont' have to take all of them. The webstie should be up soon, but I'm giving no definite dates. Transcribing audio to text is hard. A ten minute interview for me can take roughly an hour, but I'm getting better. Yesterday I sat on my bed with my sisters laptop and my ipod typing away at the Me Epic interview. Love&Reverie's will take time though, since it's four different guys whose voices I have to distinguish (in a van, half of the time while rain is making noise haha.)

Both interviews are great and I hope you guys will feel the same way.
-Brian

Current Location: North Carolina
Current Mood: NClicious
Current Music: Between the Buried and Me's Use of a Weapon (self titled)

and I'm proud to say that my good friend Dylan helped make one of the illest sites I could possibly imagine. It should be fully operational soon. I completely transcribed my interview with Chasing Victory (17 minutes! It's a whopper) and feel great about it.

I think it will give any fans of the band or people who are interested in them a good idea of what the guys are like. Check them out if you've never heard them, they're startign to blow up.

The purpose of this site mainly is to host my writing and give readers an insight on musicians and artists that they might not have gained otherwise. I also plan to talk about bands I like on this blog.

Well, It's a new year. A new site. Let's get it rolling.
-Brian

Current Location: NC
Current Music: My Autobiography by Paul Baribeau