Monday, November 06, 2006

Krakkin' 'Live At The GYC Carnival'



The Krakkin’ CD was actually yesterday’s musical choice, but since I forgot my choice of the day when leaving the house, I thought I would fall back on it.

I know that I wrote about it before and I’ll do it repeatedly (as any ex-girlfriend will tell you)… Krakkin’ was a high school band that Jonathan Everett, Tracy Thornton (www.ttpan.com), and myself formed. We put the rest of the band together in two weeks and managed to squash the competition during the GYC Carnival’s Battle Of The Bands. We sucked and the CD lifted from a bad audio cassette recording of the event lives as proof.

But if you want to hear Jeff Baker (Jimmy’s Pizza in High Point) scream and yell his ass off for 45 minutes… This is the recording for you!

The picture comes from my cousin’s website… www.danlively.com … It’s not an actual photo from that event, but I thought I’d give him a shout out. He joined the band as the lead guitarist and managed to knock a few dead during our shows.

Last Thursday night, I took Dianna to Bill’s Pizza Pub on High Point Road here in Greensboro before hitting the Guns N’ Roses show at the Coliseum. She hadn’t been in over 25 years so it was good getting her reacquainted with the best pizza in the world.

And folks, let me tell ya… If you drop by Bill’s and Cassie waits on you, give her two bucks and let her pick the tunes on the jukebox. You won’t be disappointed. Kristina and I did it a few weeks ago and maybe it was the beer, but Kristina wouldn’t stop singing along with Cassie’s picks.

Charles Womack from YES! Weekly magazine and his friend Randall showed up at the Carlisle Club where Dianna and I were hanging before the show. Adam Korn (promotions person with R92 / KZL) and his girl Amanda hit the bar. Then Kristina and Alex showed up. Joe Davis from Rock 92 / KZL turned up and it started to become a big ol’ party. I can’t speak for all of the others, but I wouldn’t give two piles of my hair that’s been falling out to see Sebastian Bach or Papa Roach. So I was content in staying at the bar and away from mediocre hard rock.

As soon as I heard the last “hurrah” from the crowd during Papa Roach’s set, we started to make our way to our seats with Adam and Amanda.

Personally, I was giddy about seeing GNR again. Yes, W. Axl Rose is the only original member, but that wasn’t the point… Axl is crazy. There’s no sugar coating because he is crazy. The rest of the band knew it and have since parted with Mr. Straightjacket (“Welcome To The Jungle” video was telling us something, eh?).

I can imagine Axl curled up on the floor after each of his performances talking on the phone with his therapist. Second-guessing every placement of his “snake dances” and whether or not he should put “Live And Let Die” and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” back-to-back.

They did play them together and I felt like it was a crazy thing to do. Go figure. I also felt like the musicians working under the GNR banner were just going through the motions. I know, it’s not their songs and I know it’s hard to get all jumpy over something that may not have any meaning to you. So over the course of the evening, my giddiness was replaced with…. Damn! It’s getting cold in here… That dancing guy down by the soundboard must be just as crazy as Axl… How long are they going play?… Did I set my VCR?... Shit! Did I feed the cat?

I didn’t get excited until Axl introduced the bass player… Tommy Stintson.

I remember Brad telling me about him joining up with the faux GNR, but I quickly forgot about it because I didn’t think he would last long. So as Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C would say… “SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE!”

I yelled in Dianna’s ear, “HEY! It’s TOMMY STINTSON!”

Of course, I had to explain that he’s a legend where alternative rock is concerned as a former member of The Replacements.

Adam and Amanda didn’t know either. So then I started thinking that probably only a handful of folks in attendance knew who he was. Then the show started picking up for me, that was until they started playing new GNR songs from the much delayed and still unreleased ‘Chinese Democracy’ album.

The sound was pathetic and I couldn’t make out anything on the new songs. For the most part, they sounded all right, but the muddy mix didn’t really get me excited to hear “new” stuff. The rest of the crowd felt the same way and decided to use their seats for their asses and got off their feet.

The show didn’t end until 2:36am and there were no rock n’ roll history moments provided by Axl, but all in all, I had a good time.

I’m still trying to catch up on the updating. And what looked like a slow week to get caught up with everything on my personal list, all changed by 8:17 this morning. But hey, that’s life and I’m sure you know about it all too well yourself.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:19 PM

    Next time, try to remember to drop the extraneous 'T' from Tommy Stinson's last name. But kudos for the good memory.

    How young are you?
    How old am I?
    Let's count the rings around my eyes

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah... I thought about checking the spelling of Stinson's name, but I got lazy even though I typed up this update at work where the Internet is plentiful.

    And I would correct the spelling, but again, I'm too lazy.

    ReplyDelete