Tonight was our first show at Scratch 8 Billiards. We'd been booked in once before, just before we were forced by circumstances to go on hiatus last year and find a new rythm section. I'd attempted to play that show as a solo act with two members from Mindphyx - but that really hadn't worked out. In fact, it had probably worked against us - and messed with rep at Scratch 8, even though that was exactly what I was trying to prevent. In the meantime, Scratch 8 had grown in stature. Some of the better known hard rock bands in town, Luxt, h.u.r.t., Shortie & Tenfold had all been playing at Scratch 8, on bills booked by Brian McKenna's Abstract Entertainment. Like Maui Pizza (which was now, no longer having live music), it was becoming a "Big Deal". I had hooked up this show via Mary Webber, who had been handling Scratch 8's booking and was also the manager for the local group Bonita Downs.

It took six weeks of phone tag to finally get a show, but we got it. And even getting that we may have had the help of some friends - a friend of Treno's who works at Scratch, and our friend Shaun who've been helping on Sactopalooza. At any rate, whether it was from persistence, luck, word of mouth, low friends in high places or whatever -- we had the show.

When we arrived, we found out that there were going to be three bands, not just two as we'd been informed. Surprise #1. Not to be the last.

It wasn't long before Scatch's bar manager began to school us on some of the local politics taking place in Old Sacramento. Around the corner from Scratch is a dance club called Tabloid 95 - and lately there had been a lot of problems and trouble associated with Tabloids. I'm talking about people getting seriously injured. As the night wore on, we were treated to horrors stories of people being sliced open with a razor, and sexually assaulted after they'd passed out behind the trash bins. And I don't mean women being sexually assaulted... I mean MEN. Well, one man - that only happened once. (I even learned a couple days later that somebody spinning donuts in a Mustang 5.0 out in front of Tabloids had hit a cop, breaking his legs) Yeah, I'm talking trouble, trouble with a capital T, yes -my friends - right here in River City. Hella yeah. (For those of you outside Sacramento - it's frequently referred to as "River City" since two of the major rivers in california intersect just a couple miles from downtown -- in fact, they intersect just a mile or so from the Old Sacramento area itself, which on the whole - is a popular tourist attraction with vintage 19th century architechture, horse drawn carriages and river boats)

Anyway, none of this trouble had really even impacted Scratch 8 - even though it shares a backyard with Tabloids - Scratch, according to their bouncer, had only needed to call the police 5 times in the last 9 years because of fighting. (He himself was quite a colorful character - who had spent six months in the S.Q. (San Quentin) for beating the tar out of a child molester. He did the easiest six-months you could imagine -- most cons figure that child molesters deserve whatever they get, since most of them were molested when they were younger. I have to tell you this guy certainly had a way of bringing out the comedic elements of tragic situations - like his once using duct-tape to keep this guy who'd been slash at Tabloids from literally spilling his guts. What a card!)

But I digress, I think the reason that things had been reasonbly tame at Scratch (besides the fact that guy like *this* was handling the bouncing - whose gonna mess with him?) is because they tended to host 18 & over or all ages shows. Brian, the drummer of Luxt had once told me that they (Luxt) didn't do very well at adult/21 & over venues. He figured it was because those crowds didn't like to really move and get into the show-- they were too busy trying to keep their drinks from spilling.

There might be a more than a bit of truth to that.

At any rate - the problems at Tabloid were apparently creating a lot of police attention on Scratch 8. Just the previous week they'd received a citation and have been forced to end a show early for the first time.

We had all of this on our minds as the first band - Unsaid started up. You may be shocked to learn that a band called "Unsaid" - is an instrumental band without vocals. Ok, maybe you won't be shocked. Well, maybe shocked by the banality of it. Still, I have to say that they were all very good players individually. They apparent hailed from the foothills of the Sierra's, near Colfax and as a three peice, (guitar, drums, bass) each member could more than hold his own on his instrument - displaying plenty of chops as they each soloed frequently and at length. The guitarist, a 30-40ish black guy with a short cropped fro, was clearly Hendrix influenced. And no, I'm not saying that because he's black -- I'm saying it because it's true. (People say the same thing about our guitarist Darryl all the time, but Darryl plays nothing like Hendrix, nor does he look anything like him) However, Unsaid's guitarist style was straight up, wah-wah drenched blues rock -- although he played through a Les Paul an a Peavey instead of a Fender/Marshall setup that Hendrix preferred. His tone was drenched in effects and a bit "ratty" for my tastes, with too much high end, but I'll tell you he had plenty of energy. The bassist was also unique, in that he played most of the set with a full-sized stand-up bass, that had been wired with a pickup. He did his solo on the stand-up -- at least until the pickup failed on him and he was forced to switch to his handy electric bass.

The one problem Unsaid had, was that they really didn't have songs -- they just had extended jams - with tons and TONS of soloing. They did do a pretty good cover of "Peter Gunn" - and had some pretty cool grooves here and there - but none of them really gelled into a song that had a real sense of motion and transition from section to section. I mean, someone like Joe Satriani does the same sort of instrumental rock -- but all of his songs start primarily with a melody, that could be sung by a vocalist if he wanted. Also when it comes to jam/solo bands - I've seen a lot of players who know how to construct an extended solo, that sounds like their telling a story. It draws your attention and sucks you in as they build phrase upon phrase, each interlocking and building on the last - slowly progressing into something unexpected and powerful. So, to me - if your going to take ten-fifteen minutes to solo -- it should be like good sex, leaving you and the audience satisfied, exhilerated and exhuasted at the end.

Unsaid doesn't do that.

At least, they don't do it yet. Given time and a bit of perspective - and some songwriting maturity -- they *might* do it - but not tonight.

Then came the second band - Red Label.

These guys were providing the P.A., and I have to say they frustrated us a little bit. As I said before, we'd been warned that the police might shutdown the show...and Red Label took nearly 35 minutes to get their gear and sound setup. A lot of the time it didn't look like they were really accomplishing anything...just fiddling, and then fiddling some more...and then fiddling again. I mean, I know what's it's like when your P.A. gear won't cooperate -- we'd been through the exact same thing when we had provided the P.A. at our last Hogshead Pub show (which incidently is right a block down the street from Scratch 8). And to be fair, we'd taken a *lot* longer getting our shit together at that show than these guys were at this one...but then, we didn't have another band waiting to go on after us - or before us for that matter.

This time was different, and we were getting kinda peeved.

Eventually, they got started. And again, I think almost immediately it was clear that Red Label is a band with potential, that simply hasn't been realized yet. They are very much a Korn/Tool inspired band. In fact, that's *all* they are. If you were to take Jonathan Davis (lead singer of Korn) and his sing-song whining, alternating with his throat scarring screams, and put him with the musicians in Tool and their penchant for chunky d-tuned rythm guitar (with NO solos), their arty bass work, and thundering drums -- you'd have Red Label.

You'd also have Shortie, Tenfold and most of the hard rock/hardcore bands in town too.

But again, like Unsaid - they need to do some work to really reach the level that even Shortie and Tenfold have reached with their live performances. First of all, they need to learn that when each instrumentalist sets up his gear to sound the best - by himself - it's only by himself that he sounds best. What I mean dude, is that the oh-so-killer guitar tone of yours is squashing out the frequences that the bass is using and vice versa. By themselves - when they were warming up - they sounded great, together they sounded like mud. Wet, sticky, gooey, gucky, you'll never get that crap outta your hair - mud.

I mean hey, we've been through exactly the same thing in our band. When Ron (our former bassist) was in the band, his tone and Darryl's used to fight all the time - like cats, dogs with a few fleas thrown in. Basically they had both been creating their sound in isolation from each other, and neither was willing to sacrifice what they thought was "killer tone" for the good of the BAND TONE. They used to argue about it incessantly -- "dude, turn down your bass/dude your squashing my tone/blah blah blah..."

Eventually, we got wise -- and maybe Red Label will too, because they really did have some nice songs. And they were entertaining too. They really put a lot into their performance. In fact, that was the most entertaining part about them - particularly their singer. He was screaming so much -- that his face started changing color. First it went from a standard light peach, to pink...then to deep red...then fuchsia...then purple.

We were expecting it to go Plaid next. Now, *that* would've been something to see. But just our luck, their set finished before we got a chance to see what new color his pores would reveal. Rock n' Roll -- WOOhoooOo. Hella bad.

Red Label had done well. They had the crowds attention, and even had a few gals who were there standing up and giggling about. This would later prove to be a *bad* thing - because I noticed as they played that they were being filmed.

By the cops.

This is possible because Scratch 8's stage is actually outdoors in a patio behind the building. The wall of the patio borders on an alley where by-standers can peak through and watch the bands. And we definately had some an eclectic audience tonight.

It was a bit after midnight by this time, and Darryl had waited out in his car - which was still packed with all his gear. He'd missed his chance to bring it in earlier -- even though we were able to enlist the help of 7 or so of Sammy's friends who come out for the show. Being an 18 & over club (and sometimes all Ages), they weren't usually able to come out and see us -- but they were here this time, and ready to lend a hand. (*MY* kinda fans...) Well, Darryl had decided to wait until the last minute to load up, since it was possible we'd might not even play if the cops shut things down early - but they didn't.

It didn't take long to get everything up and ready to go. We'd brought all the mike stands -- checked through the P.A. and were ready to go. I was a little worried because their weren't any monitors, and I knew from prior experience that since Scratch is outdoors -- the band's sound doesn't really reflect off the back wall and give us something to work with when we're singing. I've played enough gigs without monitors that it doesn't really bother me -- but I knew we'd have a problem on some of our songs with harmony vocals like "Bullet" and "Shame". (As it turned out -- that didn't matter anyway)

Also - we made a very fateful decision at the last minute. In our last few shows, and for various reasons, we hadn't been able to play our "D" songs, so this time - we were going to open with them for the first time. That meant that instead of "Don't tell me" - we were starting with "Lies", one of more *modern* sounding songs. One that requires a variety of vocal techniques - low growing - high screaming - and everything in between, and has *TWO* guitar solos. First one by Sammy, and then one by Darryl.

As soon as we started the song, with a slowly building crecendo of palm muted chords -- I could feel we were onto something. Sammy's young friends were on their feet and screaming...the rest of the crowd was feeling a buzz. Then the first full chord of the song hit - and *BAM* - we were off. I have to say we haven't had such an energetic crowd since...well, since our shows at the Crossroads with the old lineup. The big difference being that these guys were a lot younger, and Brian was right -- they weren't worried about spilling their drinks at all.

It was five minutes of Rock bliss.

And then...

It was over.

Even before we'd finished the song entirely, the bar manager came up to the stage and told me - mid-chorus - that the cops were shutting us down.

WHAT!?! FUCK!

I know - I know - we were warned, but damn. I honestly couldn't believe this was happening. They even had the Paddy wagon pull up in front of Scratch - and you know when you see the Sacramento Police Paddy Wagon - they mean to take prisoners!! (Nobody got arrested, btw - because nobody acted stupid)

But then I looked back up at the crowd - and saw that in a way - this was maybe the best thing that could have happened. It was the perfect situation. What I mean, is that this was an audition show -- all the bands playing it were newcomers and/or (relatively) unknowns and we'd played the perfect song for it - the crowd (small though it was) loved us. I mean, they really loved us. Yeah, we got sandbagged - again (I should've brought one of our prize egg-shakers) - but I think that this audience in this club, were going to remember what happened, remember our name, and remember that we HELLA ROCKED!

They'd tell a friend. Maybe two.

And they'd want more, which is how it should be. (As opposed to being burnt out and never wanting to see or hear us again!!) Good word-of-mouth is like GOLD. You can't buy it with love or money.

The bar manager - whose name I never got - *really* liked us and was talking about setting up some better shows for us with Mary - once they had their police situation worked out. (hmmm...maybe even a McKenna show with Luxt, Shortie or Tenfold - whom we've been able to play with out of town, but never in our own home city even after two years.) Time will tell, I guess.

It was almost like auditioning for the Tonight show or something. Everybody only gets one song there too - and you better *Kick Ass* or else. You only get one chance to make that first impression and you'd better be prepared to make it a good one.

All the garbage we've been through in the last few months has honed us, and I finally think we're ready. Sure, we have lots more to learn -- but we're getting past the basics, and if you never do that, you're not going anywhere.

As we broke the gear down...and hurled collective middle-fingers with the cops -- we finally got a bit more of the low-down on the legal wrangling going with Scratch directly from the owner.

It seems that citations they were receiving weren't for noise violations.

It was for unauthorized dancing!

That's right - Dancing. Scratch 8 had applied for it's dancing permit from the city, three months previously - but hadn't recieved it yet, even though the law requires that the city respond to such requests - yeah or nay - in 45 days. (According to Kirk, owner of the Press Club - these permits are a new requirement that cost $800 and have to be renewed every year) Older clubs like the Press have been "grand-fathered" in and don't have to deal with this, but the newer places, or places that have recently converted to live music, have to pay the dance toll.

Scratch 8 is one of those places.

However, according to the people at Scratch and their attorney, the citations were apparently being written incorrectly, for the wrong violation of the wrong ordinance number. Because of this, Scratch felt they had a very strong case for harrasment, and they actually *wanted* to get as many citations as possible in order to help build their case. Plus, their feeling was that they really weren't the target anyway -- that Tabloid was the true target and that Scratch was receiving citiations simply to undermine a possible discrimination/harrasment claim that Tabloid might bring (since incidently, the majority of Tabloid's patrons are black)

Equal oppurtunity police harrasment? Go figure.

So the guys at Scratch actually thanked us for getting the crowd out of the seats and moving around, and for getting them shutdown for the evening. It was just one more citation for the case-file of their forthcoming lawsuit. They were looking forward to going to court, and they even said they might ask us to testify on their behalf. I mean, at what point does a person standing up and rocking out to the beat (in place) constitute "dancing"? Believe me, they weren't doing the Macerena, not to "LIES" they weren't.

People say that life is strange, but I don't think they meant *this* freakin' strange.

If I hadn't been there to see it, I wouldn't have believed it.

Oh well, until next time - hasta la rocka!