Saturday, May 30th, 2009 marked the end of my band Ghost Towns, a band that I had spent the last three years of my life working with. A band that had allowed me tour the country, make incredible life long friends, release records, and learn a lot about myself and the world around me. We decided to go out in style with some touring friends we had met through the years, and hoped that some of friends would come over too. The day started like any summer Saturday should, with swimming! About a dozen of us spent the afternoon at our favorite swimming spot before the show. The pool was pretty wild that day. Specifically, a gentleman in his mid 40’s did a body shot of a 20-something girl’s belly. In hindsight this was actually a pretty good sign of how wild things would get later that night.
We returned to our lovely home that is the Ghost House and got every thing situated while we waited for everyone to show up. Slowly but surely all of the bands and all of our friends showed up in the front yard and it was time to get things started.
Old Men, Dead Dogs, from Iowa played first. I don’t personally know these guys very well, but they were on tour at the same time and had asked for a show, so we threw them on. They play a style of pop-punk/hardcore that reminds of the Movielife. They were a lot tighter than I had remembered them being from seeing them in Omaha a few months before. They covered the popular 90’s hit song Jumper by Third Eye Blind, which of course worked a bunch of kids into a frenzy. Overall rad, rad dudes who I know are down to party.
Between OMDD and Loma Prieta, a gentleman by the name of Andrew preformed a few acoustic songs outside in the yard. Unfortunately I was too busy collecting money and making sure the PA was all hooked up to watch. I heard that it was great though, and that he had a very beautiful voice!
Loma Prieta was up after that. I had known three of the four members of this band from the last time they played in Lincoln with my old band. We caught up through out the night before they played and it was great to see all of those dudes again. Loma Prieta is from California and plays chaotic, screamy emo music in the vein of Orchid, Neil Perry, etc. etc. You know that this is kind of stuff my emo ass is all about, so I of course loved it. Val is one of my favorite drummers in punk today. I have seen a lot of mind blowing drum playing in my day, but he was just so creative and so solid at the same time. While you can’t sing along to LP per say, I definitely got in a good amount of head banging and fist pumping while they played.
Some time in the night, my dear friend Gabe attempted the 40 pizza role challenge in the living room of Ghost House. If you are unfamiliar, there is a kid who eats 40 pizza rolls in under five minutes (I believe) on youtube. Gabe thought he could best that chump so 40 pizza rolls were nuked and he went at it. Apparently 40 pizza rolls is a lot more than he thought though. I came upstairs to a living room full of people chanting his name while he finished the last one in just over five minutes. Damn.
Comadre was third that night and wow. They have been one of my favorite bands since I first saw them in Omaha in 2005, and have made it my business to help them every time they have come through since then. Comadre is also from California, and although they have a lot of screaming, they also have quite a bit more melody than Loma Prieta. The basement was bursting with people as they strummed the first chords to “Burn the Scene”. A million sing alongs, one kid dynamite cover, and 20 minutes later, they finished their set. I was almost embarrassed that my band had to play after a band that good.
Ghost Towns was up next. Before we even started someone decided we needed to take off our clothes. So before we played one note you had DJ flapping his jim-dog all over the place, me in my underwear and shoes, and Kellan with his pants around his cowboy boots and his shirt on. It is always hard for me to see who is all in the basement when I am playing but that night I was so excited to see all of my best friends down there, waiting for us to hurry up and be done. We took our time tuning and setting everything up so everything would sound as good as it could for our last hurrah! Highlights while we were playing include our friend Metal Robert from Iowa, Kellan goofing up the last song, making us start over like a bunch of 12 year olds, and a few unsavory words on the subject of rape. I also hadn’t had any water all day and become super dehydrated while we played. Just to clarify: I was puking, not crying!
After that a party pretty much broke out. Vegan sloppy Joes were eaten. A bottle of whiskey was consumed. Bottle rockets were shot out of butts, shopping carts were set on fire, and puke was sprayed across the couch! Truly an unforgettable evening if I’ve ever had one.
Thanks to everyone that came out to this show. I appreciate everyone who ever cared about Ghost Towns, even a little bit. This band really meant the world to me at one time, and I’m glad I could say goodbye to it with all of my friends.
Love,
Vic
Good post. Your scene really looks alive.
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