After the grueling drive from Chicago, I finally found us a hotel far enough north of Six Flags to be affordable. We staggered in blearily to a room at a Super 8 where the windows didn`t open. That might not have mattered if we hadn`t filled that tiny room with smoke. Checking out in the morning, the entire staff of Super 8 teased us, and begged for weed. I claimed total ignorance and we peeled out of there promptly. Those poor fuckers in the midwest don`t deserve our Oregon green.
Bongzilla Live at
Emissions from the Monolith 2
(Click photos for larger versions)
We rolled into Milwaukie around brunch-time and found a nice cafe with good coffee and ashtrays on every table. Johnny was hoping to buy a leather jacket while we were in the area, but it wasn`t to be. What we did find was a goldmine of a record store. Rush-Mor records in Milwaukie has officially become my favorite record store in the universe. I could have easily spent my life savings there on rare metal and prog. As it was, I traded a few Witch Mountain discs towards some Amon Duul II and got the hell out of there.
So we rolled up to the Cactus Club around noon. The owner was actually there vacuuming the stage and pulling nails so we got to load our gear in and get back on the freeway bound for Johnny`s cousin`s pad. After some detours on a beatiful country road, we landed at a little country palace dedicated to Harleys and those collector`s plates with geese painted on them. We napped and snacked and generally relaxed and finally headed back to Cactus Club for another evening with our friends Bongzilla and Weedeater.
Attendance wasn`t as good as Minneapolis, but it kicked Chicago`s ass. We played a good set to our friends and some local rockers before relinquishing a very small stage to Weedeater. I can`t remember for sure if Dixie Dave puked on stage that night, but I`m betting he did. Those guys fucking rock.
Bongzilla also played a stellar set, and we got to meet and hang with Spanky`s girlfriend and former O`Cayz Corral proprieter Kathy. She was sporting her Acid King shirt proudly and representing for all female Wisconsin cheeseheads in black metal bands. You might know her on the forums as Morticia Mangle, member of Tormentula.
Bongzilla Live at
Emissions from the Monolith 2
(Click photos for larger versions)
We also got to meet the handsome, young Melquiades of Classic Album Forum fame. He chatted with us and picked up a few discs, and generally made us feel welcome in the mid-west.
This was the last show before our appearance at the festival; our reason for driving all the way across the country. And we felt ready.
After the show, we headed back to the country pad for an evening of drunken Karaoke. From Ozzy and Lita to country classics, you could hear Dave`s death screams for at least a half mile, long after midnight. A good time was had by all. The next morning while packing up, we noticed a little black lawn fisherman in the yard of our host`s place. We were all laughing at it, partially because you just don`t see that sort of thing on the west coast. We were laughing about how funny it would be to take it and throw it in Weedeater`s van because Weedeater get a lot of shit for sporting a confederate flag. Johnny`s cousin said she`d be glad to see it go, so we washed the bugs out of it, and threw it in the van.
I remember getting in the zone and driving us all the way across Indiana in one stretch thinking the whole time that there must be a Subway at the next exit. This was the longest Dan went without a cigarette on the whole trip. He was a trooper that day. We played cat and mouse with Bongzilla who were also headed to Ohio, and saw them at one rest area at least. Although we had planned to catch the whole first day of Emissions, it was not to be. Tour lag was starting to set in, and getting there simply in time to catch headliners Raging Slab suddenly seemed sufficient, and really, was the only option.
We rolled into Youngstown, OH around 9:30pm in the middle of a lightning storm. It seemed prophetic and exciting. The Nyabinghi club had the look of a tiny biker bar from the outside, and the parking lot across the street was not as full as I might have expected. We`d driven 2500 miles and there were less than 100 people there. But we learned over the next three days how little that mattered.
Nyabinghi has 2 main rooms, and each one has its own bar. The point of entry opened upon video games, and tables full of metal merch. The room at the back is a dirty, dark concert hall with a killer sound system. The whole place is a trap for cigarette smoke that almost took my life :)
We had actually beat Raging Slab to the club. But they did arrive shortly before they were due to hit the stage. And holy shit was it worth the wait.
Raging Slab Live at
Emissions from the Monolith 2
(Click photos for larger versions)
Greg was dressed like a cartoon Indian in full suede fringe. His guitar interplay with Elyse is some of the most amazing I`ve seen. Greg finger-picks everything, and Elyse is a master of slide-guitar. The crack rhythm section included an NYC session drummer who I have to say was the best drummer at the whole festival. It was a rock performance I`ll never forget.
At the show, we finally met The Rubes face to face. Although they weren`t playing the festival (I still can`t figure out why), they were there to represent for Ohio. You might recognize forum names like Gloomp and Mace. Three nicer guys you will not find. We all caravanned over to a motel where I`d made reservations three months in advance. I`d even called earlier that evening to make sure everything was in order. Well, things were in order at 9pm that were no longer in order at 2am! So The Rubes and Witch Mountain were out a room in a town that had none left. That just might have happened too if I wasn`t such a bitch. I raised hell, I raised my voice, I made threats. I went through gangster-style coercsion tactics that must have looked pretty funny considering I`m skinny and 5`7".
Raging Slab Live at
Emissions from the Monolith 2
(Click photos for larger versions)
And you know what? I got us a room. Granted, we had two beds for seven people, but we just pulled the extra mattresses from beneath and threw them on the floor. We stacked furniture to make room and demanded extra blankets from room service. The scene that hotel security guard walked in on must have looked pretty freaky to him. Imagine seven rockers smoking out in a tiny hotel room in the middle of the night in Youngstown, OH. I`m surprised they didn`t call the cops.
Actually, I think Danno may have had some sort of run-in with the authorities when sleeping in the van that night, but I can`t truly recall. If he did, he must have used the force on them because we were all wasted, and he was still there in the morning. What a survivor.
El Danno: I got busted by the hotel security guard for "pee-peeing in the parking lot where any of the womens and childrens from the hotel could have come out at any time and seen my pee-pee while I was pee-peeing in the parking lot." I was calm. I did not overreact. Even in the face of the security guard`s threats to call the police and have me thrown in jail, where, according to him, I would remain until Tuesday, being as it was a long weekend and that`s how things work in Ohio when you get caught pee-peeing in a parking lot. After a good 15 minutes of explaining to him that I was in fact taking a leak in a field next to the parking lot fully hidden by my van he reluctantly let me retreat into my van without prosecution. Thanks guy!
So day two of Emissions 2 arrived. Dan and the rest of the band headed down early to set up shop and see as many bands as possible. This also included drinking as many beers as possible. You`d be surprised how many that is when you spend two 14 hour days in the same bar and all they serve to eat is peanuts.
I rose a little later and headed over with the Rubes. Even on Saturday morning there were a good 40-50 people at Nyabinghi to watch each band. And most of the bands had less than a day`s drive to even be there. What impressed me the most about the entire festival was the sense of community. Since we basically were a day late, Dan only had one tiny square table available for the All That`s Heavy store merch. That might have been workable, but the guys from Underdogma spotted us setting up from across the room and came over to offer a long table they`d brought with them that was sitting unused in their truck. And this from a "competing" store! To me, this was one of the best moments of the weekend. We ran out and hauled the table out of their truck and got to introductions. Those guys are some of the coolest, most generous cats in the underground.
We also bumped into our buddy Bucky from the great Minneapolis sludge quartet Swamp Mongrel. He spent the whole weekend there, drinking and swaying, being held up by his girlfriend. Great guy. And another great Emissions story. Bucky had sent out Swamp Mongrel 7"s all over the place looking for a record deal. Well, apparently Underdogma had responded, but the letter got lost in the mail. Both parties thought the other had blown them off, but within ten minutes at the festival, Bucky and Underdogma were able to work out details where UD would print up new color covers for the Swamp Mongrel record, and take hundreds of them for distro. It swells my heart to see these things happen to good, deserving people. Add to this the mid-festival announcement that The Glasspack had been signed my Small Stone and all of a sudden it seemed that there is truly hope for rock & roll.
Raging Slab Live at
Emissions from the Monolith 2
(Click photos for larger versions)
There were just too many bands at Emissions to give an accurate account of everything, but here are a few highlights: Dragon Green are fucking loud. A trio with four Green stacks. `Nuff said. Weedeater played saturday too and this is where the fun really came to a head.
Remember the lawn fisherman we adopted in Milwaukie? Well, it was time to pass our mascot into more deserving hands. With the help of Weedeater`s friend and roadie, we snuck the little guy into the front seat of the Weedeater van, and buckled him in with a ball point pen in his hand where the fishing pole used to be. Rob walked back to the club and told Dixie Dave that he`d seen a stranger in their van. Dixie got bright red and rounded up a posse. They ran to the van, got up to the door, and looked in the window. There in the driver`s seat was the little guy with his pen. The laughter was almost as loud as the bands inside. These kind of inter-band pranks make touring that much better. To this day, I think that little guy is a part of the Weedeater family. Greg "Gloomp" Fee captured the whole thing on film for posterity.
All this comedy was unfortunately balanced pretty heavily with a bit of tragedy though. An undercover narc snuck into the club and started asking where he could buy some weed. Apparently the Youngstown cops weren`t unaware that it was a "stoner rock" event sponsored by High Times. I don`t know the exact chain of events, but the result was a very rude assault on the Bongzilla van. Spanky was caught and busted for all the buds they`d brought. Even though the cops found a jar of green butter, they ignored that, having no idea what it was. And thanks to Dixie Dave (who swallowed all the coke), Spanky was merely ticketed.
Dave on the other hand, had a bit of a problem. The one guy who pukes on stage at every show on every stage in the country, had swallowed a fair amount of coke, and couldn`t get himself to puke. Spanky`s girlfriend Kathy suggested that if he could get on stage and sing, he might work himself into yakking.
Which segues nicely into the evening`s finale. Boulder has not been around as long as the other festival headliners Raging Slab and Spirit Caravan, but they proved to me that they were just as worthy on stage. The sheer metal attack was amazing. What sounds like good clean fun on album comes across as incredibly powerful, classic riffage, and unparalleled showmanship. Add to this an encore of Iron Maiden "Running Free" with a hopped up Dixie Dave on jumping, spazzing, and vocals, and you have one over the top evening of rock that truly topped off the 13 hours of molten music that preceded it. Unforgettable.
Boulder Live at
Emissions from the Monolith 2
(Click photos for larger versions)
