Notes From The Road - Nashville, TN. @ The Bottom Lounge

Burlesque, booze and bands. That pretty much sums up The Goon 10th anniversary show. In 2009 Eric Powell invited us, and our good pals Ghoultown, to play his event.  The show was held at the Bottom Lounge in Nashville Tennessee.

It was a dark and dreary day and it didn't start raining till the end of the show while we loaded up the gear.

We were the first to arrive and the place was an empty warehouse. Getting pre-show jitters I worried that the place could NEVER fill up. But with the power of The Goon, 3 bands and a ton of burlesque dancers it was a lock.

A few hours before the show Santi from Ghoultown lead us to a hidden location a few blocks away were we could buy coffee. We ended up at this trendy bar hidden within the factory buildings.  We entered the bar with Santi in his cowboy hat, boot spurs and bullet bandelero, but since it was Nashville they only thought Bobby and I the freaks with our greaser look.

(Lyle from Ghoultown and Bobby)

I remember seeing a lot of the people we met at DragonCon at the show. And we got to hang with Eric for a while before the crowd showed up.  Once again we forgot to make it a Kodak moment and didn't take any pictures with Eric.

To close out our set we called Ghoultown and Eric up onstage to sing some Misfits tunes to end the night.

Notes from the Road – Yuma AZ. @ Prison Hill

In 2007, we played on Prison Hill in Yuma Arizona -- literally on Prison Hill. I remember Bobby set up this show with some kid through MySpace. It sounded sketchy at first, but it ended up being one of my favorite shows.

I can't imagine how these kids started hosting punk rock shows on the hill, but I salute them for their DIY attitude. Our friends ORDER OF THE FLY have played on Prison Hill and said they had fun too, but they also said they had a hard time with powering all their amps and keyboards. I didn't understand why they had a problem till we got there and found out they ran the power from a small gas generator. I remember I kept eyeballing the gas generator because it looked less than half full even before the first band played. The kids assured me it would last all night, and he was right.

These kinds of shows must have been going on for a while because when the sun set more people showed up. By the end of the night, the hill was packed. I thought for sure the police would arrive and shut down the outdoor party, but they never did.

These pictures don’t do it justice. The energy from the crowd was amazing. The sky was filled with stars, and the weather was cool and energizing. Also our friends SATURDAY NIGHT SHOCKERS stopped by and played that night as well.

The following pictures I found on my computer from the show. I didn't note who took them, so if it was you let me know!

Notes from the Road – Antioch CA. @ The Mutiny

I've decided to finally to something with all the pictures I've been taking when we play shows. So keep an eye out for new blog updates called -- Notes from the Road. Here's the first of many...

In 2008 we played a small town called Antioch in California at a bar call The Mutiny. The night Bobby learned a valuable lesson.

During the show, Davey and I noticed that Bobby was not around to watch the other bands. Later, we found out that someone bought him beers and shots at the bar on the lower level. Normally we don't drink when we play a show and here’s a good example why.

I knew we were in trouble when we played the first song -- I mean tried to play the first song. We might as well have handed the guitar to a monkey in diapers, cause Bobby could barely play. That was the longest set of my life, good thing everyone else was drunk. It’s odd that everyone whooped it up, as if they didn't notice the tragedy unfolding on stage. I guess when the music is loud and the audience wasted you can't go wrong. Then it happened, the police showed up and shut down the show. They must have heard how bad we were playing. We were told about a noise curfew after 1am. Small towns, go figure. I couldn’t have been more happier.

I have a theory about drinking and playing music. I think you need to start drinking when you start playing otherwise the booze to music ratio is totally fucked. I know if I drink and play music I'll forget lyrics, lose my finger position on the bass, and burp a lot. What a lovely image that is.

I have also noticed in our travels that often when a band calls for the audience to bring them beer, the band SUCKS. This is especially true when they call for the audience to bring them shots, and 100% guaranteed when they call for booze before they even play the first song.

At the bar someone informed me that Ed Hardy was once a respectable tattoo artist before his art was put on clothes for duchebags.

Now that’s what I call art.

The sun shined while a soft breeze rustled the trees. Like Mayberry from The Andy Griffith Show, but with punk rock music.

-Jimmy

Tony Parker - Calabrese Cthulhu Art

Here’s more monster art that we have not ended up using yet. This Calabrese Cthulhu piece was commission from Tony Parker.



Tony delivered us a black and white piece that we requested, but afterwards we wanted to add some color. We sent it to D.W. Frydendall who added a touch of red and our logo for the final rendition.

-Jimmy