Sunday morning had arrived and the 10am alarm came fucking early after being awake long past dawn the night before.. I was on a mission though! A very serious mission. Everyone MUST see The Rubes!!! Why? Because I think they`re one of the greatest, most talented, most genuine and emotionally powerful bands out there right now! That`s why! I just can`t say enough good things about these guys. Pure artistic soul!! Fuck. You don`t get much higher on the cool-scale than "pure artistic soul" (a phrase I just invented by the way), now do ya!? And.. but.. why was the mission so "serious"? ..That`s easy! The Rubes were the first band on and were gonna be on stage by NOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!! Oh glory me!

My next task was to wake as many people up as possible and corral them all into the van. Which went well with the help of MadJohnShaft and we had a full van-load of rockers ready to roll by 11:30am! Kick ass!!! All weekend I`d been saying "DON`T MISS THE RUBES!!!!" to everyone I talked to and I had also been looking eagerly forward to seeing them play since we hung out together at last year`s Emissions from the Monolith festival. The Rubes are a bunch of cool dudes keepin` it real! But that`s a whole `nother story. The important thing here is that we made it in time to see them hit the stage!

We hadn`t had breakfast that morning. ..or had we? What we did have for certain were PROPER bloody marys from the Nyabinghi. Fuck yeah!! Not even noon and the parteeee is started babeeee! haha - yeah, whatever. The first sip of that perfect bloody mary caused a downward spiral of a potentially very-harmful-to-my-health variety. It wasn`t pretty or fun but it happened. That`s later on in the piece though, right now The Rubes were just hitting the stage. I also enjoyed them the most out of all the bands of the weekend (with Lost Goat, Porn and Dixie Witch as close runner ups). The Rubes put on a heartfelt and soulful performance that was equal parts blues, southern-fried boogie rock and straight-up power metal the-way-it-should-be-done. Fuck yeah! I was in a very warm and fuzzy place while they were playing, that`s for sure. Especially during my favourite song "Wonder Why".

Ok. Sorry. Enough gushing about The Rubes. So what? They totally ruled and totally fucking nailed it! Who cares, right? ..Right. All I cared about after they`d finished playing was gettin` meself a fresh bloody mary. I`d finished my first one already and they weren`t small drinks by any stretch of the word. But before I could wrap my alcoholic`s-shakey-hand around a second tomato fortified hair-of-the-dog vessel I was lead out to an inconspicuous looking van and was thereby smoked-out to utterly silly proportions by Infernal_ed and pellet. ..and it was only just past 1pm! Doh! Double-DOH! I was getting ornery and skittish but maintained an outwardly wry grin to repel attention. (see photo in right column :).. I began smoking cigarettes early today!!! Right about now actually. I was beginning to come unhinged. The illness feeling was creeping forward.

I rounded up a few hungry souls, coerced someone much more sober than me into driving and we hit the Iron Skillet for chicken fried steaks. For some of us this double-helping of chicken fried steaks and eggs would make 3 chicken fired steaks so far this weekend - only in the midwest baby! (well, that`s the only place I ever eat `em!).

Unfortunately, during the process of eating breakfast, we missed Lamont and Burnout completely and with a giant bloody mary`s worth of hard booze in my bloodstream, a second bloody mary now in hand, mucho bowl-loads in my lungs, two chicken fried steaks and 3 sunny-side-up eggs in my belly and already chainsmokin` like a motherfucker I headed off to watch Porn, eat a spacecake and arrange to eat mushrooms with Tina Goat before their set which was slotted immediately after Dixie Witch.

Porn, who were filling the The Brought Low`s slot, was a highlight of the weekend for myself. Moss generated the most evil & dirty feedback drenched soundscapes that I`ve ever heard in my life. They played the D Set! Which is basically the first song off of American Style called "Comin` Home (Smoking Pot On A Sunday Afternoon While UFO`s Drone Overhead)" extended out into a lengthy effects laden jam with portions of other songs surfacing here and there throughout the set. I could be wrong about that though. hehe. The sound was incredible! (...and if I haven`t already said this a dozen times - the sound was incredible for the entire festival, they`ve got that room dialed in!). The new Porn lineup included Billy Anderson on bass and Johann Zamora on drums was tight as fuck. A sweet distortion drenched bass solo was even provided by Billy Anderson. These guys are the coolest!

While we`re on the Topic of Porn I`d just like to tell a little story that may hopefully redeem my reputation ...as I`d previously made the exact same mistake that the hero of this story, omie, was just about to make, and I got to experience the whole thing from start to finish! Too bad I can hardly remember it.. Haha! I`ll improvise a bit. Here`s how it sorta went down in a condensed version where all of the dialogue was invented by me:

Omie to Moss: Hey man! Wow. It`s great to meet you man.

Moss to Omie: Hey man! You too.

(extended conversation ensued...)

Omie: I`m lovin` that new Orange Goblin record man!

Moss to El Danno (me): He thinks I`m Scott [Reeder] doesn`t he?

El Danno to Moss: Haha. Yup! I knew it right from the start too. I just wanted to see how it panned out in the end :)

It was fun to watch someone mildly embarrass themselves in the exact same way that I had last year in San Francisco. (There is a feature about that trip, and my own Scott Reeder/Tim Moss mixup story, here.

And who else could possibly follow Porn and still manage to completely slay everybody in the audience? Dixie Witch, of course. I`ve seen Dixie Witch several times now, they`re one of those non-west-coast bands that actually makes it out to west-coast every now and again, and I`ve seen them when they were really "on". This fine Sunday they were fucking phenomenal! Huge!! Powerful!!! Definitely in a league all by themselves. Trinidad (the drummer and vocalist) later hopped up on stage with The J.J. Paradise Players Club and did the vocals for one song. Crazy! The very very very best thing about Dixie Witch, though, is their songs!! "Into the Sun" and "Makin` Time" are easily two of my favourite songs of all time. Granted, I`ve got a long list of favourite songs, but these two are definitely on it! hehe

The illness-feeling maintained it`s composure and avoided making me concerned. It was just there. It didn`t feel all that wrong yet but it definitely did not feel right. Tina Goat and I hurriedly chewed up the shroomy-shrooms that she brought and had arranged to share with me the night before. There was only a cap and a couple of small stems to split between us so I thought "not a problem!" and chewed `em up and swallowed `em back with unfaultering confidence and headed off to the front row while she strolled on stage and behind the drums.

I was given the opportunity to request two songs for Lost Goat to play during their set. I chose "Codine" (the tortured Buffy Sainte-Marie cover that The Monkeywrench plays too) and "The Hanging Tree" - both killer songs off of their new album The Dirty Ones - "The Hanging Tree" probably being my favourite Lost Goat song yet! ...but that`s beside the point. Right at the beginning of their set I began to feel those hey-buddy-you`re-gonna-puke-soon rumbling contractions in the pit of my stomach.. Oh-oh.. Not now!! Arrrghhh!! I am SO STOKED to see Lost Goat play at Emissions!! Uggghh.. I persevered for another song or two and then I absolutely had to make the decision of whether I should exit into the fresh air, drink some cold water and feel refreshed or stay put in the hot, muggy, sweat scented and smoke filled back room and vomit chicken fried chunks all over the stage, Erica and all the people surrounding me, including Billy Anderson, who was wearing a wifebeater with the words I NEED PILLS emblazoned in black jiffy marker across the chest while Tina Goat was wearing the version that had a jiffy markered "TITS" cleverely printed boldly across her tits (see picture in right column). I strongly believe that I made a wise decision in joining spacecakes and Swurve in the parking lot across the street for some water and fresh air.

Man, did I ever feel completely and totally ill... I ventured back in once by mustering a lot of courage and caught a brief portion of The Hanging Tree before I had to head back out again and a second time where I limped in just in time to hear the last note of Codine before their set was over. fuck fuck fuck.. I missed both songs that I`d requested - what an ass!! And.. Fuck this.. I had to get back outside RIGHT NOW!. I sat outside with Johnny Dark, who looked like he was nearly as roasted as me, probably on spacecakes again, with our backs up against the bumper of a van and sat there straight through the entire Tummler set. Luckily I`d already seen them in Chicago 3 nights before.

Gawd. I felt so sick. I couldn`t stand up. My guts were aching. I felt like I was gonna hurl big time (but never did!) and I had vertigo coming out my ying-yang! The lovely carsongirl (who took some of the photos up in the column on the right) was kind enough to bring me a cup of water from the bar. Thanks again carsongirl, you`re such a sweetheart!

And.. then.. I realized something very important. I was still wearing a nicotine patch even though I`d been chain-smoking for several hours straight at this point. The big red and bold warning on the box clearly states that smoking while wearing a patch can be detrimental to your health - they go out of their way to discourage this pastime. And the whole time I thought I was peaking really hard on those mushrooms and the spacecake and was in for a bad trip. I immediately took the patch off and drank a lot more cold water and was feeling a fuck of a lot better, and chainsmoking and drinking again (bourbon and cokes) a few songs into Kung Pao`s set. I bumped into Tina Goat several times and shared some particularly sane, considering our state of mind, conversations with her. See some pictures up in the right column.

Up above I called Porn "the coolest". Well, Kung Pao is even cooler than them in the sense of the word "cool" that makes people wear denim from head to toe, mirrored aviator sunglasses, trucker caps, chug cheap beer and be proud of their beer bellies. They actually did an official announcement on the StonerRock.com Discussion Forums that they`d already reached the 1,000,000 beers drank together as a band mark. And so early in their career too! I think they`re even sponsored by some beer co.? I want Pabst Blue Ribbon to be " the official beer of StonerRock.com" but they nver returned our phone calls. ..and Kung Pao was so heavy and raunchy - so much like Tad but so good just the same! They had the stage lights turned on bright-white for their entire set which made the backroom feel gross like a fluorescently lit bingo hall - huge cloud of cigarette smoke and all...

Unfortunately I skipped out on Milligram while I was outside eating and freshening up. Bummer!

The J.J. Paradise Players Club, from New York, were already on stage when I made it back into the club. By this time I was mainly concentrating on spotting the next person that I could bum a smoke off. I still managed to watch most of J.J. Paradise Player`s Club`s set though. And man were they tight for a bunch of drunkards. Perfectly drunk and perfectly tight. From some live reviews that I`ve read I expected them to be wasted and sloppy but the latter wasn`t the case at all! I was there when Trinidad of Dixie Witch got up on stage for a song with them. I even got photos of it! But.. and that`s a big fucking but. I sillily (that`s actually a word too, I just looked it up on Dictionary.com) missed their last song! Apparently they knocked all of their gear over in an orgasmic feedback orgy - or.. uhh.. I heard it was something like that anyways. hehe - Whatever it was, it probably would have made for the best photos of the weekend if I`d been there - double damnit!

Right about this time I realized that I could ask for my bourbon and cokes in a plastic beer cup and they`d be 3 times the size! Yum! I was in that special place where you`re stoned into a completely different reality, a warm and fuzzy and happy reality where there is nothing to worry about, and Bottom pummeled me into a sublime submission. As it was with many of the bands this was the best that I`d ever seen Bottom play! Although, I really think a lot of this is thanks to the soundman (Greg who organized and ran the entire festival, owns the bar it was at AND did the sound for most of the bands). When a band sounds good they know it and they usually can play that much better!! ..and Holy Shit.. What a set! I think my photos demonstrate how much these cool-chicks rock-out better than I can explain it! Heavy shit man!

As I think I said earlier in the feature Mark from Marksound was doing the sound for Alabama Thunder Pussy and Orange Goblin and some people said they weren`t impressed with it compared to how dialled in Greg had all the other bands of the weekend. Well, I gotta say that they sounded pretty darn good to me! I was wearing earplugs for the first time in my life, all weekend, and I strongly recommend this to everyone. I can use them now because I finally learned that you can adjust the sound dampening level by moving them further in or further out of your ear just like turning the tone knob up and down on your stereo. Try it at the next show and see for yourself. Save your ears!! ...and with my earplugs adjusted perfectly they sounded awesome, just like all the other bands did with my earplugs in.. Without the earplugs who knows?

Either way. I already reviewed the Alabama Thunder Pussy/Orange Goblin show that we saw in Chicago so I won`t go into much detail about their sets except to say that both bands were excellent and were definitely worthy of the headlining spots for Emissions from the Monolith IV. Worth an additional mention was the fact that Ben Ward was so tall that when he stood on the stage monitors his head and back were crunched up against the ceiling! Orange Goblin also had some of the guys up from Alabama Thunder Pussy to guest vocal on the Misfits We Bite (maybe some guys from other bands too... hazy... hard to remember) cover and they blew a bass head! Which slowed things down quite a bit while they borrowed one from someone and carried on in fine fashion. Unfortunately the place was PACKED so I didn`t manage to get any photos of either band. Sorry! Hopefully the ones from Part 1 satiated you.

It had been a long day for me, especially considering the extended sickness of the afternoon, and everyone else felt the same way and we were all pretty much ready to head back to the hotel to get some much needed sleep before awaking bright and early for our 8 1/2 hour drive back to Chicago the next morning. Except for sapling and Randolfio. They chose to stay at the Nyabinghi, and search out a hotel room party, even though it was last call and we all had to be out of bed, somewhat presentable, in the van and on the road by 9 a.m. to make our flights out of Chicago that evening. They both found their parties and returned to their respective hotel rooms at some moment in time that came after dawn. I`ve made this decision their way enough times to know that a 2 hour hotel room party in the wee hours of the morning was not going to worth the pain of the next day. Not for me anyways.

And.. Motherfucker!!! Was sapling ever hard to wake up in the morning! I tried everything except dumping a bucket of ice on his head and he still wouldn`t wake up after 15 minutes of trying!! I`m pretty sure he`d only been asleep for a couple of hours, tops, after an all day/all night drug binge. In a last ditch attempt I was lifting his entire upper body off of the hotel room floor by his wrists and dragging him back and forth across the carpet whle he managed to maintain deep coma status throughout the whole episode. I was getting so frustrated with him that I felt like I might explode and when he finally came to he had an expression of death on his face.

Luckily. Everything worked out pefectly. We all made it back to the airport in Chicago in time to catch our flights and we all got on our stand-by flights on the sunday of a long weekend, even jeff kupferberg of Maduro Records, who hitched a ride with us in the Van-o-Doom to Chicago on his way back home to Minneapolis and scored a cheap flight ticket off of Sweet Heather by the sheer luck that she had an extra standby coupon on her person when we arrived. Thanks again for everything Heather!! sapling got coach and I got first class again on our flight back to Vancouver and I felt like a million bucks on Tuesday morning and was up at 7am working while sapling had a harsh sickness for the next week! I guess cutting back dramatically on the cigarette smoking and not staying up passed dawn for the Sunday night hotel room parties actually had an effect on my continuing quality-of-life after Emissions from the Monlith IV!

In cloing. I just wanted to make mention about how smoothly the Emissions from the Monolith IV festival was run by Greg and the Nyabinghi. The place was packed, the staff were all friendly and the bands all went on stage on time. The festival was a complete success in every way. There were so many people there as a matter of fact that Greg had to hit all the grocery stores each morning to load up on beer! I guess he also had to buy 17 giant green garbage cans from a grocery store just so there was a place to store all the empties!! I wonder if a bigger venue will be in order for next year?

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