Hi everybody, i’m Conan Neutron, I play in the band Replicator from Oakland, CA. There are many tour diaries, but this one is mine. Thanks to the SSC gang for asking us to do it here.
Wow, i’m really, really behind here… sorry folks.
Detroit at Small’s was a fun show, if you take away the combative relationship we had with the very moody soundguy.
Chris GoGoing to Ifihadahifi
For some reason we have bad luck with sound people, but not as bad luck as the dude who was apparantly shot down the street (!)
But first… we had stayed at Ben’s mom’s place again which was once again a refuge and sanctuary from the harsh mistress that is the road. This time we brought the Hifi with us too, which made for added chaos and awesome.
Amp repair at Mama Adrian’s house, the Quad was once again acting up which wasn’t good for anybody.
Chris decided to bless both bands with Ben’s mom’s meditation chimes, cleansing us of all bad gear karma so the rest of the tour would go well.
Dj from hifi was in the shower at the time so Chris attempted to bless his genitals through the bathrooom door.
It was nice to wash out the last show we played and start with a clean slate.
Soon enough we were on our way again:
Hifi in the Supernaut window
Ifihadahifi at a rural convienence store.
It’s nice touring with another band, we try to stop at the same time so we can hang out at the godforsaken places we stop at on the way.
There’s a lot of scenes like this.
And this:
Michael and DJ from hifi.
Notice how Michael “accidentally” has the “I will pander to the locals” shirt on.
I was in a somewhat foul mood so did a lot of sleeping in the van. Hilariously, since we overshot the venue the first go round, we ended up a block away from 8 mile! Niiiiice.
Anyway, we go to the club, Small’s Bar and it’s pretty nice, big stage, nice sound system… a bit big perhaps, there’s a flyer for Melvins and Big Business for instance, but it seems like it’ll be a good show. The sound guy is playing Queens of the Stone Age, Hot Snakes and Afghan Whigs and such, it looked to be shaping up rather nicely.
Fun Ender from Lansing opened up the show, thankfully agreeing to switch out with us. Why on earth you would put the band coming the furthest away in the opening slot of a 4 band bill with a local and semi-local I have no idea. But luckily Fun Ender was rad about switching up with us. Thanks gents! Considering we are sharing equipment with Higi anyway, it really does make sense.
Fun Ender played a muscular set of tight and crunchy noiserock goodness. There is a sort of unwritten rule that if you play with a Harmonic Percolator and a metal necked guitar you are going to get compared to Steve Albini’s band, but I think the dynamics of the rhythm section had more of a Minutemen sort of feel to it. Perhaps a more aggro/less poppy Arcwelder?
Lansing’s finest!
They had a song about needing a hug that cracked me up.
Anyway, luckilly Fun Ender did not live up to their name.
The Fun did not, in fact end.
nice set gents.
Replicator was on next, and it was a little stressful as this was the first show with my newly re-rerepaired amp. Would it work correctly? Would it sound good?
Only time would tell.
Everything seemed fine, I plugged in and thranged it a bit, and it was sounding good. We then did a line check for volume and the sound guy (unsurprisingly) informed us that we needed to turn down. Since I had already turned down and the room was pretty big and non-bright, I was leery. Especially after NYC and the “sound sculpter”. Todd pretty much summed it up with a very curt “No.”
hahahahah… it was then that the sound guy turned against us completely.
I politely informed the dude that he could just keep the samples and vocals up high and maybe kick back the kick and snare for Chris and we should be pretty much fine, we’ve had really bad experiences with volume regulation at venues and we just tend to play loud.
This was pretty much my last interaction with him, as he slipped into a pissy funk for the rest of the night. It was then that I knew that I wouldn’t be hearing any vocals that night. I didn’t realize he was going to take it personally.
Can I just say, that the phenomonon of the hyper sensitive sound guy is something I am completely sick of.
We’ve joked about bringing a bottle of Paxil with us for them since they all seem to:
A) hate their job.
B) hate music.
C) hate loud noises.
D) hate us.
I’m not sure where this came from, since generally speaking the sound people are the first people that love us and the fact that we know exactly what we want, how to get it, and most of the band has been on the other side of the board on many occaisons makes us VERY low maintainance.
All I know is, sadly.. yet another combative relationship with the sound dude.
lame!
We tried to not let that stop us.
setlist:
Fashionably Latent
Warrior Needs Food, Badly
Payment Www.yzzz.rd
Alert Status: 0
Delicious Fornicake
Happy Loyalty Day!
Login With My Fist
We played pretty damn well, since Small’s is so gol darned big (ironic no?) it still seemed rather empty… and with a large comfortable bar area totally a few rooms away from the performance area, we were also stuck in a situation where people might not even be aware that music is being performed in the other room.
Chris, Ben and Michael hanging out
The people that were there, including my friends Bill Lusa and Joe Lemur were into it. Which is always good.
Oh and there was some street festival that day, and get this, some people got shot!
yikes.
Meaning that the crowd that was there now couldn’t leave, and other people couldn’t come in because the street outside the club was now a crime scene.
It does put in perspective not being able to hear vocals or samples though.
Ben’s rock stance!
Chris on drums.
Conan double vision
Standoff!
The super moody soundguy was hurrying Hifi after we played because “Replicator overstayed their welcome”.
Wow, hilarious.
Oh and did I mention “screw you” you passive aggressive fucktard?
Totally not professional at all.
Did I say “Fuck off and die” yet?
Hifi’s set was good, but you still couldn’t hear the vocals, which is a shame as they had a good sound system that seemed more then powerful enough to do the trick.
Hifi:
I am a ghost in front of Yale.
Rev. Ever from Hifi!
yale got crazy with the megaphone we picked up in Boston
Hott megaphone action!!
The Amino Acids headlined the show:
The Amino Acids!!
they play in these creepy masks and stockings:
The Amino Acids
Amino Acids pulpit
They never speak on stage at all, but are still very animated, having arguments and discussions without actually speaking. It’s disconcerting and kind of awesome. Music wise they play a sort of noiserocky super speedy surf music kind of thing, with a goodly amount of Devo thrown in and mixed with Theremin. I dug ‘em! They put on a hell of a live show, and have rad samples and things.
Conan and Chris
Chris is alert!
Afterwards we went to Scott from the Amino Acids place, all of us… both bands, M’ris and our pal Joe Lemur in tow. wow!
We hung out there for a long time and basically loved all over their adorable dog Lucy!
doggie!
Ifihadahifi.
Chris, Ben and Michael
Chris got frisky with me!
As there were no kinds of internets, I basically got really behind on this tour journal.
meta meta meta
next stop: Chicago!
bonus pictures:
Cosmos the cat!
Mama Adrian and Mris
our capitalist expansion zone, and the greasy pizza we ate that night.
Our indentured servent M’ris
DJ’s messed up leg
4 Comments »
Fucktard= best word ever.
It’s murder on the dance floor, huh? The song has a new meaning now.
Keep up the good work guys your music rocks!! btw check out a new Online Social Networking Site http://MyNubianSpace.Com. Find singles personal ads with photo, chat online and get offline dates with members of this online dating service site.
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Comment by brad k. — September 4, 2007 @ 12:46 pm
sad i missed you guys while you were in hamtramck — i was down in tennessee for the long weekend. bil had nothing but good things to say about the show, at the very least.
i lived a block away from small’s for two years. it’s one of those places that has a lot of potential but seems to be run by total jackasses. the owners couldn’t determine whether they wanted to run a bar, venue, or both — so they’d often switch between charging cover at the door proper and the venue door. the sound system IS great, though the (past?) sound guys seemed fond of all bass/drums and burying guitar/vocals/keyboards. i’ve also heard a lot of stories about shadiness and bands not getting paid, though i know they’ve changed management a number of times.
the neighborhood wasn’t too bad while i was there, though it sounds like it has been going downhill as of late. have heard about a couple of shootings and the house i used to live in was recently robbed… not fun.