"Nice blood, but I think it'd look better sprayed all over my face." -Snare Drum

No time for a formal greeting: we’ve found our favorite opening act for any local show ever. He’s a pirate. He plays the keyboard. He sings. He’s so good at both keyboard and singing, he’s been described as “the Billy Joel of pirates.” I can’t find a link anywhere online but the musical act known as Captain Scurvy was through and through both enjoyable and educational for those of us who were ignorant about the ways of pirate life.

So we’ve been playing shows the past few Saturdays in a row and it’s been boatloads of fun, but you may be asking yourself (a.k.a. I hope someday even one person asks themselves this): “What are The Good Excuses up to those other six days of the week?” Well, I will TELL you. But it’s going to be in the form of an absurd quiz I’m about to create off the top of my head. The answer will be nearly undeterminable, as it will be hidden amongst four very possible and perfectly reasonable scenarios.

This week, The Good Excuses have been:

A) Attempting to develop a new form of renewable energy that is created through the wondrous power of rock music.

B) Desperately trying to finish our recording sessions which go on forever because we’re obsessively in love with what we do and can’t let go of it until we know it’s perfect.

C) trying to go back in time using a car with silly looking doors to fight sentient computer viruses that appear as grim-faced men in expensive suits alongside sentient toys just trying to get back to their owner, while simultaneously rousing 300 over-excited and under-dressed spartan soldiers in order to throw down an evil wrinkly Sith lord and his half-man half-dog companion, using a mixture of comedic karate taught by both a mutant rat and an imaginary friend who happens to be Chuck Norris, while also fearing that the same day may just repeat itself forever in this quiet town of Punksatony where everyone has already been killed by zombies, but ultimately defeating said zombies along with Zuel, Zurg, King Koopa, the Scarecrow, Captain Hook and an unreasonably large great white shark,  just in time to send an alien home, get back in bed before our parents find out we skipped school, and get back to the future for THE talent show, which is of course comprised of an outlandish Nintendo competition and an unlikely rock n’ roll performance by four guys from Erie PA, with the vain hope of winning the girl, saving the world, reserving a table at Dorsia, winning the local karate tournament, stopping the T-1000, and ultimately destroying the One Ring thus saving the galaxy.

D) Shuffleboard.

Whoever guesses the right answer will be the lucky winner of a strong desire to have the last three minutes of their life back.

- Jeff

What’s in a name?

First, let me say that we’re pretty easy going guys. The only thing you kind of hope for when you play somewhere that has a sound guy is that he’s good at it and does his job.  And if there has to be someone yelling your band’s name into a microphone right before you play, that they know what it is.
Earlier in the week we were referred to as “the no excuses”. Then at the show it was “the new excuses”. Not a problem. After we started playing no one had a problem remembering it and someone from the venue rubbed our sticker on their wall.
It reminds me of a great scene from my favorite movie “That Thing You Do”, when The One-ders (the wonders) were getting called ‘The O’Needers” by the talent show host and Boss Vic Koss introducing them when they were first starting out. Hopefully you’ve seen that movie because it’s friggin awesome. We’re not spelling our name in any sort of clever, over thought way though. So it’s kind of even more hilarious that it’s been happening.
We’re obviously not upset about it, I mean, shit happens. I’ve forgotten the names of bands we were playing with before simply because I had other things to worry about and I’m just not familiar with them. I also have a serious problem with forgetting the names of movies, adjectives and nouns related to the plot, and who the main actor is in them. So all I have to go on when I’m talking about it with someone is ” You know that one movie where an extra in a blue shirt walks past the camera when Terrence Howard was getting in his cyborg suit?”.

Our set ended up going great. Jim’s hybrid 4×12 held up and there weren’t any equipment issues for a change. Hopefully we get to come back to this place. The sound guys were awesome and the venue’s about an 8/10. I’m taking 2 points off for absolutely no reason.

-Andrew

the note tla electric factory

The Note on a Saturday. How in the hell? It wasn’t but 2 weeks ago we were playing at the North Star Bar at 10pm on a Tuesday (bad ass time by the way). We’ve been wanting to play at this place for a while. The sound in there is hard to beat and a lot of touring bands go through it.

When we finally all got there, we took our end-of-a-roadtrip bathroom break and setup our current incarnation of a (free) merch table. It’s pretty basic but it’s something. We should really post a video of how we’ve been stamping cd’s with our rubber stamp. When I’m stamping those cd’s, I feel like 90% DIY and 10% office secretary (and no I won’t do “anything” for a raise).

An alarming number of people came to this show that I honestly hadn’t talked to in person for 10 or so years. Again, the quality of the venue helped. I’m pretty sure it’s just convenient for people that like going to good places to actually be invited to a good place in a town they frequent. Maybe they missed me too? I’m not sure. I don’t care why they came, I’m just glad they did.

So long story short, I almost passed out again during Mr. Rutherford, a person ran onstage and kissed Jim on the cheek during one of our songs, and Jeff almost died after “The Bride of Funkenstein”. My guitar and my Marshall head are both in the shop now after that show and a guy outside who told me his name was “Ace” now thinks my name is “Spades”. All in all, a victory. We’re looking at doing another show there in July. Come to it.

The night air was a tad bit nippily. Upon our arrival at the aforementioned venue, we felt an emptiness in our bellies that could only be filled with burgers. A kind, soft spoken gentleman approached the table at which we were sat. He took our order for some of their world famous hamburgers. Whilst our wait, we calculated the odds of a successful Cinnamon Challenge and arrived at the conclusion that there is, among our ranks, an identical false confidence that has preceded each of the hilarious failed attempts on the YouTube. We will try to document this using a soul stealing device known as a “camera”.

Nearly 40 minutes had passed before our order was fulfilled. That chef was given a full ten minutes longer to flip a burger than we were to play a set. Forks and ketchup were requested. The fork was eventually retrieved by Jim himself, who sees no boundaries walking into the kitchen of a restaurant getting forks himself. Neither do I, but I also have no boundaries about eating anything with my hands. At that point, a Ginsberg-ish man appeared to take our money and make us feel welcome. It worked.

As the night wore on, the burger in Andrew’s belly showed no vulnerability to hydrochloric acid. He tried everything. From burping to stomach rubbing to asking himself “If I was a burger made in a bar,  could I be digested?” The answer is “no”, but everyone else seemed to be doing just fine. This has been happening at every show recently for some reason, and the food was obviously cooked at some point during a 40 minute wait…so we’ll chalk this and previous occurrences up to a non-formal diagnosis of Scotomy.

The show was probably our best in a while.The sound was top-drawer in this venue and it was partially due to the attentive sound engineer named Joe.

Pictures of the night can be found HERE

Enjoy!