Live Gig Discussion - Swafford, Dec. 21, 2007

[Swafford]

Event Date: Dec 21
Venue Name: Southgate House in the Lounge
Location (City, State/Province, Country):Newport, Ky, USA
Wombians involved & function: um, me. Yes, i function.

3 hours of Len's Lounge fun.

[clicktrack]

So Tell us all about it!

How was the crowd?

[bunnerabb]

I do about 250 shows between Apr. and Nov.

For a small fee, I wont post them all, here.

:D

[Tim Armstrong]

I do about 250 shows between Apr. and Nov.

For a small fee, I wont post them all, here.

:D

Do you realize you may very well have stumbled upon a way to actually make this work PAY???

:icon_eek:

:lol:

Tim

[Swafford]

So Tell us all about it!

How was the crowd?

We hadn't played in about 2 months. I hate to practice. I got, er, uh, um, drunk.

The Southgate House is a 19th century Second Empire style mansion. It sits on a small hill that used to overlook the Ohio River, where, in years past, we would sti and drink and watch the coal barges float by. About 7 years ago or so, the city of Newport, in their infinite wisdom, built a mall on the levee. Now it overlooks a mall. It has a small bar on the first floor, a 100 seater on the 2nd floor (called The Parlor) and a 500 seater on the ground floor (called the ballroom). Our show in the Lounge was packed with 20 somethings having a party. University of Cincinnati Law Club or some such shit. Beautiful people getting drunk on Coors Light (I guess that's possible).

Through 3 sets of mostly original tunes, we train wrecked 2 songs. The crowd was mostly indifferent, I tried a couple long winded stories about getting busted in Aberdeen, Va., having my due process violated, being strip searched, and laughing as I undid the battery compartment of my camera and eating one of the 10 hits of acid I had there while in the jail cell, but mostly the young future lawyers were about getting htier dicks and clits sucked. Nothing wrong with that. So we mostly had fun playing, doing my favorite song After image (!about doing acid and rejecting Jesus!) for about 20minutes, my guitar rig in a swirl of tape echo, Zvex seekwah repeats and feedback. Good times. They perked up a little when we played half a set of acoustic songs, even giving a couple of rebel yells during "Soul Sucker' when I exclaim

"In the glow of smoggy skies
A smooth shade of red from the weary fires
Light bends in meets my eyes
It's 5am and all I think is 'your a fucking liar'"

By the 3rd set, I was pretty lit on Guinness. And it all got kind of blurry.

But wait, the fun didn't stop there.

After 6 hours of sleep, I yanked my body out of bed, did some automaton parental crap, then sat in a tattoo chair for 4 hours having my arm pounded with color packing. Ouch.

And there's more.

I ran from the tattoo parlor to my already loaded van and drove up to Turner Gil's, a bar in Macgonagle, Oh. - a little one stop light town about 30 miles north of Cincinnati. There the country band I play rhythm guitar in was doing a night for the locals. Our third gig, and the first with me in charge as 'music director', ie, enforcer of arrangements and endings and sound man. As many already know from this forum, I'd queried about cobbling together a PA for a 300 hundred capacity bar. Well, with my old JBL 825's, couple of Eons for monitors and the new drummers old Peavey 680s, I had the sound rocking for a 7 piece band with 4 singers, keys, acoustic guit and kick drum in about 30mins to everyones total satisfaction.

The band really rocked for the first time, everything syncing nicely, the front chickss being on key, on time and fucking sexy as only bleach blond, big hair country singers can. By the 2nd set, the place was pretty crowded with entertainment starved locals and people were really fucking drunk, dancing, dry humping and holding close for the slow songs. The stage was set up near the only window in the joint - a big plate glass window that I had the privileged of standing in front of. Halfway through the third set, the reason I play in this band (besides the money) was starting to unfold.

A couple of guys were rubbing ther asses on the glass. OK. Then they were mooning, good enough. Then they were drunks, rolling on the pavement, their dicks in the air laughing. Yeah. Wasn;t long before people would leave the bar, instead of going ot the bathroom, and pissing in front of the window, wagging their dicks at the singers, their girlfriends complaining, then joining the fun and pulling up their shirts. It all devolved by 1 am into a fist fight. Yeah, baby, almost like a peep show in reverse.

I'd like to personal thank Merle Haggard.

Thanks Merle.

[G cubed]

Good read man.............Brought back memories of some of the gigs I've done. :lol:

Keep posting your future gig dates.....although it's not often, I do manage to be round those neighborhoods from time to time.

[bobzilla77]

I saw Big Black do one of their last gigs ever at the Southgate House! It must have been the downstairs ballroom, 500 sounds about right. The gig was terribly sold out so we traced the hand-stamp pattern off someone's hand & all managed to get in. Odd location for a gig but, hey, it was a good night.