December 6, 2000 update -
"No, it's Aunt Uncle Benjamina Jemima Affleck the Third, Esquire."
"My humor is so not funny, that it's funny..it's a kind of anti-humor."
-Tim Searles, on multiple occasions.
We finally got a bassist..maybe.
We've been relatively busy as of late, considering our usual sluggishness. For the month of December, we'll have a dedicated bassist as our old friend Matt Boser comes up from college. He might come on as our permanent bassist, depending on the outcome of some personal choices he has to make. If you think Matt should throw away his promising career in engineering to provide Kids Called Crazy with his bass playing and songwriting talents,
write us. Support the cause of poorly thought out, life-altering decisions!Upcoming shows and name dropping
Show news…we've got a show coming up on December 23rd at the American Legion Hall in Manchester with Paid Thank You, Eyes Sewn Shut, Barstow, and Subterra. Six Ways From Sunday was supposed to headline, but had to drop out due to girlfriend-related obligations. However, they will be making that up with another show sometime in January, featuring most of the aforementioned bands, and possibly the great Small Town Hero. More news on that as it comes. All the shows should be benefiting Manchester Food Not Bombs as well, and should have food served at them. The food will be free and vegetarian, suitable for the poor as well as the self-righteous.
The Orange Hall Food Not Bombs show…
Speaking of Food Not Bombs benefits, we just played one a few weeks back at the Orange Hall, and I'll write about it here so I can hype the bands we played with. Eyes Sewn Shut play metalcore, but do it so well that even I like it…Mike is just a goddamn good songwriter regardless of what style he's writing in. Barstow rocked in a melodic, upbeat style, but a bit more raw and heavy than is usual for bands of this style…they're too wussy for Hatebreed kids, and probably too intense for the Get Up Kids crowd, and as a result will probably be under-appreciated. But for what it's worth, they blew me away.
I have to take a moment now to tell everyone that Subterra is possibly the best band going right now. They take the formula of four kids, 15 and under, playing punk rock, and beat the shit out of it. I would describe them as hardcore punk, but they inject a shitload of creativity and energy into the formula. They actually manage to capture what it was that made me listen to the old 80s punk bands in the first place, without copying them at all. At the Orange Hall show, Tim spent the entire show jumping, screaming, and writhing on the floor shirtless, taking a break only to provide bongo on a song. Kyle came out on guitar in a speedo, and aside from providing an energetic and technically awesome show, earned a couple bucks from admiring ladies. Josh and Mike(bass and drums respectively) put on less of a visual show than Tim and Kyle but provided one of the most creative and tight rhythm sections I've heard in a long time, and they do it with a combined age of less than 30 years. I could rant about how good this band is forever. If you live in Connecticut, consider yourself lucky and get to one of their shows asap. If not, make a pilgrimage or something.
Our set start as kind of a spectacular failure, but pulled out from a nosedive halfway through. As part of what I was later told was very witty stage banter, I said "Hi, we're Kids Called Crazy and I have a feeling we're going to suck."
I wasn't lying...for 4-5 songs we broke strings, played out of tune, tried to cope with an unfamiliar amplifier, and played offbeat. I reached a point where I was about to give in, but a friend inspired me to forge ahead, at which point I declared that we were done sucking and proceeded to play an amazing second half. We played until we ran out of songs, then we started using some of Fifteen and ELO's. The funny thing is that afterwards, a couple of people told me that they thought I was being witty and staged the whole thing where we totally sucked for the first half, and then were really good the second half…we're just legitimately inconsistent….and I may have been hallucinating under the pressure, but I could have sworn I saw pit dancing and pileups for Electric Light Orchestra's "Don't Bring Me Down"….