the infamous life story

and waited.

and waited.

by the time he showed up at around 8:30 the people that were there were getting a bit impatient. he explained that he was late because he had to call the cops on some guy or something. about 20 or 30 people or so were crammed into bill's house by this time and were ready to watch us, arrowhead, zeb's band (i never knew their real name), and the then current shorecrest superhero band: said child.

okay so we started playing at 8:30 and finished playing at 8:45 or so. it would have been impossible for us to play any longer because we had only four songs. when we finished, i distinctly recall someone saying, "that's it?" on top of the length of our set being sub-standard, during the second song, my bass drum pedal broke. i temporarily fixed it only to have it break during the third song, forcing me to repeat the repair. and then, just for good measure, it broke again during our last song.

during the months after that first show we kept up to our old habits of being hooligans and just terrorizing the whole world we lived in.

our biggest distraction from practicing was a love for the art of skateboarding. all three of us spent many hours after school skating at various spots in the U-district and in north and downtown seattle (hereunto referred to as 'seeathole' for no particular reasonable reason). there are four skateboard video extravaganzas in existence that document the lives of one or more of our skateboarding selves which you will probably never see.

during this time, we all held the same job. all of us were "crew people" at mcdonald's corp. or as ianj. used to say: mcdeath. i have no idea why some of us worked there so long. ianj. was the first to leave, followed by iank. and then myself. iank used to write songs as he worked the drive through, ianj liked to wreck his bike on the way home from work, and i liked to run over little girls with my bike on the way home. all in all, it was an experience that i don't like to share with my psychologist because he always blames everything on it.

but we still worked on music stuff, don't get me wrong. in the spring of 1994 we endeavored to make a sort of demo for ourselves. you can get the skinny on that at the discography page.

so this is what we did for nearly a year, until our next offer for a show came up...

boarderline skateboards is a few miles north of our houses. the outdoor show was to be in celebration of the grand re-opening of boarderline. they had just gone through some remodeling or something and wanted to drum up some business. so they got us, spitting dolly, and another band called ohnalim (pronounced: on a limb) to come make noise outside of their business. being our second show, we were excited to go play it. we were so excited that we made a crap load of flyers for the occasion at kinko's. (i didn't go in on this endeavor but i hear that we got the flyers for a good price due to some connections we had). i donated a picture that skinhead john had drawn for me and the ians did the design.

spitting dolly played first. they were pretty good and played a green day cover as i recall. unfortunately, the turnout for this show was not as grand as we expected. about twenty or thirty showed up and sat on the sidewalk out front listening to the tunes. so spitting dolly finished up and we came on next. with us, out came the sun and we got pretty warm. amazing for august in seeathole. i can't remember much of this show anymore, sorry. i do recall that we had monitors and all that fun stuff because someone from spitting dolly knew someone that had a bunch of pa equipment. ohnalim played next, two twins and a drummer with a very long bass drum. i think they even had a tape at this time. i wonder what ever happened to them...

well at any rate, this show was fun. a bit of free food, free music, and a close gathering of friends: i can think of few things i like better.

after the boarderline show we played a small show (like we have done any big shows) at my house for my sister's birthday. i think there were ten or eleven people there. we played a few songs set up in my upstairs living room with the kids we were playing for sitting on the floor. that's about all there is to say about that.

after we played for my sister's birthday we went to school the next friday and brought our equipment with us and played a show during our "tutorial activity period" or whatever dumb name they gave to morning recess. we played in the student activity center (sac) for a whole buncha people. i think this is the show where ian k. initiated his tradition of puking his guts out before every show for good luck. i think we played about seven or eight songs and made everyone late for their next class. we were set up against the windows and i got extremely sweaty because the sun was heating me up. but it was real fun to play for the old high school crowd.

following david's elite party, we went back to the old let's-play-at-so-and-so's-birthday-party routine. angie g. lived down the street from me and was due for a birthday. a couple of kids decided that a surprise party was in order. so they kept her away from the house while we set up and guests arrived. then she arrived and the party began. we played every single song we knew until we were exhausted. most of them while people sat in the other room. it was really quite entertaining. we should've broken something. once firemen came to the door and complained about the racket but it turned out that was just a buncha people angie knew. well in the end her mom gave us fifty bucks. our first and best payment.

i think halloween was one of our top five shows. being halloween and all, we decided to dress up. what is more funny than boys dressing as girls? nothing. so we borrowed some skirts from some girls we knew and bought some knee high socks and white t-shirts, wrote messages on the shirts, and then proceeded to play two lunch time shows in the sac at school again. we were also supposed to play somewhere else that night but the kid whose house the show was at wimped out. it was reputed that at one time, when ianj. sat down on the stage for a bit, you could see his john thomas poking out of his boxers. that's kinda funny when you realize that most of the school saw this show. but he wasn't embarrassed.

you know that song dream? well that's a blatant tribute to the fact that we'll never get to (for lack of a better word) "have" 80 be our gal-pal. she managed to capture the hearts of both ianj. and i but we never managed to capture hers... ah well. so we played a few songs which no one knew, i read a little from an issue of cometbus about love before we debuted dream, and then we went home, simple as that. although there was some money given to us by the church guys, i forget how much it was. maybe 20 bucks. that's about all that's interesting about that show.

new year's we were blessed with the honor of playing at some guy's house who didn't know we were coming. it was a party for a bunch of college kids and stuff. ianj.'s friend emily pretty much got us this show i guess. at first i thought it was for a frat house but i'm not so sure of that one now. so anyways we went down into the basement and set up our stuff and played a crap load of songs. then the second band came on and played til midnight and beyond. they had a song without lyrics and i ad libbed a bunch of crap to that. sort of fun. people there quickly got bored with the tunes and went upstairs to continue drinking. ah well...

one of my favorite show locations was the c-hall boys bathroom at good ol' shorecrest. i don't know why the school actually let us play there one day after school. they must have been completely insane at the moment. but we did and warned all the nearby (or so i thought) teachers that we'd be playing then.

about seven people came along and a friend (mary) brought her video camera at our request and filmed the whole thing. we thought of it as a video shoot where we played a lot of songs. i've never seen the video. ah well. about half way through the set, the school drug counselor (from the room nextdoor) came in with the football coach and yelled at us for being so damn loud. i guess we didn't tell everyone that we were going to play. heh heh heh.

the talent show was fun. we played two songs (supposed to be three!) for about 300 people in our fancy theater. it's on video thanks to some kids iank. knew so i made some video captures that you can get from the picture pages from that. we played ummm and our cover of op ivy's "knowledge," supplying the words to knowledge on a big overhead so everyone could sing along (of course we couldn't say "it's lookin fuckin narrow" in school so we told the crowd to sing that part loud if they knew the real lyrics) and being backed-up by ashley and crystal (who were required to be in the talent show by some class so we let them sing) on the mic. it was really all quite fun and we even got fourth place. we were planning on presenting dream for review by our peers (and 80 if she was there) but they told us that we could only play two songs right after we finished ummm... not very happy about that, no. but what can you do?

but before i do, let me say that the week i spent with my brothers and our friend sara was one of the most memorable times in my life. there's so much from that week that changed so much of how i think and who i am that i can't imagine having not gone on tour that spring break. i can honestly say that it brought the three of us closer than we had ever been and it is a time in my life that i will never forget.

the happythoughts tour?
appeared in nod#4

okay. it's spring break so we got the rock out of seeathole and went to san francisco (no flowers in our hair... unless you count pomade as a flower). we got in this huge fight with this large roving band of hicks on the 16th after driving for two million hours and sleeping for one on the 15th. us four (ian, ian, me and sara (ian's californian buddy)) picked up the 5300 pound (when fully loaded) van and threw it at the hicks so they buggered off. on the 17th we had sara lead us on a romp through the bay area and santa rosa where we talked with all the kids from green day, tilt, kid dynamo, and anyone else you could think of. ian j. found the meaning of infatuation while talking to hugh (spelled hieu or something) while me and ian k. just smoked (breathed the air) at seven fourteen humboldt. we dinked around for a few days, i decided on what college i'm going to (you'll have to ask if you actually care), we found out that the guy from gilman screwed us out of a show, and we played our impromptu highlight show at the phoenix theater in petaluma. we played with (literally) the catnips, bum magnet, ground round, and (trumpet fanfare) fifteen! all of the drunk people there really thought we sounded okie dokie and we got a good recording (with quiet vocals of course) if you want one. we dinked around some more (hey stop thinking like that!!), stole a bulldozer, went to the beach and threw rocks at fish, rented some forgettable movies that we could use sound bites from, and played another show on friday. it was rather dunky. i left during the last band and ate some cookies and went skating. we traded a demo for a t-shirt if anybody wants a tape to record over. speaking of t-shirts, we have broken even!! so now t-shirts only cost 7 clams and 7 clams of that 7 clams goes to some fine charities (food not bombs, the pride foundation). but anyway, on saturday the 22th we went to the rumsey blues festival and met some rather pretty gal named chevron and saw some idiot they called san rafael slim. also we played unplugged for a few songs w/o drums for chevron and a few other kids. the next morning, we went home leaving a trail of vandalism, death, and destruction in our wake. for a more detailed (and truthful) account of our tour, consult dummy #2 and/or #3 (no, not ian and ian, the zine ian j. does). have a nice day. by the way, we traveled 2412.5 miles total.

the amazing happythoughts spring break tour
as appearing in dummy #3.

after reacquisitioning the letters for the word 'happythoughts' from the reader boards of local businesses late friday night (the 14th of april), we went back to don's house and finished loading up the van. we watched the nofx 'ten years of fucking up' video and finally hit the sack around one am. don got to sleep all alone on his twin bed while ian k., sara, and i had to sleep in the four foot space next to it on the floor.

at 4 am, don's clock radio went off blaring some godawful radio station. it was time to go. after a quick breakfast of water and muffins, we all piled into the van and took off for california at exactly 4:59 am pst. after stopping to 'rest' a few times and pulling into a closed weigh station in southern oregon to weigh in at 5300 pounds (the van, equipment, and all of us) we arrived in fairfax a little after 7 pm. don and ian k. got pizza from the pizza place i worked at last summer while sara and i made due with french bread.

sunday morning (the 16th of april) we hung out down in berkeley for the day and then went to the humboldt house in santa rosa to crash for the night after wandering the streets of downtown santa rosa until almost 3 am with the humboldt punks (drunks). while at the humboldt house we met most of the sonoma i.a.c. (independent arts coalition), gabe (the bassist of tilt & ground round), and hieu (the guitarist of kid dynamo). instead of in the humboldt house, we ended up at the boyce street house and i slept out in the shed while don and ian crashed in the van.

the next morning (more like afternoon) we left to go back to fairfax and the half hour drive ended up taking almost 2 hours due to an accident that stopped traffic. when we finally got back to sara's house, we ate lunch and decided to go to the city to buy music at epicenter records. the rest of the monday and the first half of tuesday must not have been too great cause i forgot what happened, but tuesday night we went to dinner and celebrated ian's 18th birthday at pagliacci's (the place i worked last summer).

wednesday morning rolled around and we called hieu about a show he said we might be able to play. he gave us the good news that we'd be able to play the show opening for ground round and fifteen at the benefit for the humboldt house in petaluma. all the profits made were going to be donated to fix the cat which had just had kittens and to clean the stove and to pay off some bills so their water wouldn't get turned off. anyways we loaded up all the gear and went to hang out in santa rosa for the day. when we left the humboldt house, we had 7 people in the van with only four seats, everyone very cramped into the little spots the equipment didn't take up. some band called catnip played first. they weren't too great and i tried to keep myself busy by chatting with some of the other people in the green room. when we played our set, people seemed to like us, but the sound guy fucked up don's vocals so you could barely hear them.

after our set i had to keep an eye on heather, who was very drunk after celebrating her 21st birthday by drinking brandy in the girls bathroom and didn't really hear the band that played after us. ground round played and then fifteen, during which time we sold a t-shirt. whoever told me fifteen were assholes was dead wrong, they took requests throughout their set and even hung out and talked with don, ian, sara, and i after everyone else left. for the show we made $20 and used most of it to go to taco bell and eat after the show.

on thursday (420 day for all you potheads out there) we went out to the ocean at bolinas beach and climbed the sand cliffs, raining sand clods down onto the beach and yelling at some guy who was fishing to throw back the fish he caught cause he was murdering them. the poor old bastard actually listened to us (don says the guy didn't hear us), cause when he caught a fish, we yelled 'throw it back' until he did. on the way back to fairfax, we picked up some hitchhiking hippie chick who wanted to smoke us out in exchange for the ride (and because it was 420 day). all of us declined, not only because we don't do drugs, but because the van is don's parent's. after dropping off the hitchhiker, we went to the video store and rented bill and ted's excellent adventure and cheech & chong's up in smoke, watching the latter while eating big plates of spaghetti before going to bed.

in the morning, i was the last to wake up and didn't get any breakfast cause ian had eaten all the cinnamon life. after watching bill and ted, sara and i designed the silkscreen for the happythoughts patches we wanted to make. our initial attempts at printing it failed so we just made a stencil and spray painted our patches instead. after letting the patches dry, we went up to santa rosa to hang out with the humboldt punks (drunks) for the afternoon before out fairfield show.

at 5pm we left for fairfield, soon finding the directions we had been given to be wrong. expecting a ymca or small theatre, we were very surprised to find that we would be playing in a converted garage. there are only two words for the venue that don and i could think of, and these are being kind: shit hole. the place was a dive. we played the show for a bunch of drunk and stoned 30 year olds. the band that played after us was called deep stream and some other band called individuals union played using deep stream's equipment.

on saturday we went to the rumsey blues festival with sara's family, forced to see a huge number of drunk and stoned adults undulating to some egotistical middle aged man who basically played the same 4 chords over and over for 5 hours. most of the time there we spent down at the river, but once it got dark we decided to go back and listen for a bit. while we sat and watched the blues band play, almost every teenager there came up to us and asked if we were going to play (we had been introduced as 'sara and the band' by sara's parents), but the guy in charge of the whole thing didn't want us to. once the whole thing ran down at about 11:30 pm, we went back out to the van followed by about a dozen teenagers (two of whom bought t-shirts) and hung out for a while before most of them left to go to bed.

sunday morning we drove home, the miles a 12-hour blur, all our thoughts turned towards remembering the past week, sometimes drifting to plans for our next tour.

everything on the trip was decided by democratic vote. i was almost always nominated to drive, the motion passed by all except for me. i never thought i'd get so sick of driving. overall, the tour went well other than being screwed over by gilman, we accomplished what we set out to do. we sold a few t-shirts, had fun, didn't kill each other, and got a little more exposure.

the show at greg's was a laid back way to end the school year and overall a fun show. unfortunately spitting dolly had to cancel for some reason which i forget now. it was okay, though, because that left only two shorecrest bands to play for the shorecrest punk/straightedge scene.

in the summer of '95 we decided to record most of the stuff that we knew. we rented a 8-track from a local music store and set out on recording. unfortunately, none of us knew a damn thing about multitracking and we wasted the first day trying to figure out how to do overdubs. the next day we decided to record everything live, instruments, vocals, the whole bean burrito. in all we got 16 songs on tape. iank. was the main engineer and paid for the 8-track, i think. it was fun to make the tape but i feel we have better recordings elsewhere (my vocals are a bit ungood after a few songs).

rounding out the summer, we played what i thought might be our last show at a crappy hall in silverdale, wa, with crappy crust punk bands and a semi-rock band with a singer with a hairier chest than me. the bands: brain sick, pucker factor, the jack trippers, and tourette syndrome. we took the ferry over there and that seemed to be the most exciting part of it all. when we played there were about six people in the hall and 30 crust punx outside picking their butts. i think that my monitor shorted out too so i had to sing without hearing myself (again). we made acquaintances with the semi-rock band tourette syndrome and found their set pretty interesting. during their set a member of one of the other bands started picking a fight with the hairy-chested singer, it was pretty funny. this supposedly last show reminded me a lot of our first show, it was crappy.

in august ianj. left for the east coast super-college, bard. at the end of september the van made its second trip to santa cruz with my stuff for college. iank. remained in seeathole and attended the university of shoreline community college. this separation is why i feared the crappy silverdale show would be our last.